Rosa’s Bus by Jo Kittinger

Today, I am featuring a book by a writing friend, Jo S. Kittinger. Rosa’s Bus was recently released by Boyds Mills Press. I met Jo a few months after I started writing for kids when I attended my first SCBWI conference. Jo was (and still is) the co-regional adviser for the Southern Breeze regional chapter of SCBWI.

I am grateful to Jo for being willing to give me advice along my publishing journey. She and her husband Rick are also accomplished photographers and I always love seeing the beautiful photographs they take of nature. (I miss the photo gallery Jo used to have on her website.)

I took special notice of Jo’s books at the conference bookstore back in 2001 because they were nonfiction, and the subjects were perfect for my sons back then: rocks, dead logs, and birds. In addition to those books, Jo has written easy readers and has a picture book forthcoming from Peachtree Publishers titled The House on Dirty Third Street.

To my mind, Rosa’s Bus is a perfect example of how an author can pitch a well-worn topic in a new way. A quick search of books about Rosa Parks available through Amazon.com yielded 120 results. At our recent SCBWI/Southern Breeze conference, I asked Jo to read from the book and to talk about why she approached a familiar subject in this way.