This Old Band and Gone Fishing Update

I’ve recently heard some very nice news about both GONE FISHING and THIS OLD BAND.

 THIS OLD BAND is a 2014 Southwest Book of the Year for Kids! Here is a link to the group of four selected books.

GONE FISHING is included on these state and regional reading lists:

2015-2016 Horned Toad Tales nominee, Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, Houston, Texas

2015-2016 Indiana Library Federation Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee, Intermediate Grades

2016 Oklahoma Library Association Children's Sequoyah Book Awards Nominee

2015-2016 Virginia State Reading Association Virgina Readers' Choice Elementary List

Thank you to the readers and the librarians and reading teachers who decided to include my books! I'm thrilled to know that young readers will be reading them both.

Good News! GONE CAMPING: A Novel In Verse is on the way.

I'm happy to announce that Gone Camping: A Novel in Verse is a project that I'm currently working on with my editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers. Gone Camping will be a companion to Gone Fishing and will feature a story told through a series of poems with the same two main characters: Sam and Lucy. Gone Camping is not only a family camping adventure, but is also the story of how Lucy struggles to overcome her fear of sleeping in the tent and away from home. I'm thrilled that Gone Camping will be illustrated by Matthew Cordell, the talented illustrator who brought Sam and Lucy to life in Gone Fishing. Gone Camping is scheduled to arrive in the spring of 2017. 

The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations!

I'm pleased to share the release announcement and cover for THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTOHOLGY FOR CELEBRATIONS from Pomelo Books, compiled by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell:

"Coming in April 2015! The next book in The Poetry Friday Anthology series, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations, features poems in English and Spanish by 115 poets for 150+ holidays and celebration..." Read more at Pomelo Books!

Here is the beautiful book cover:

What fun, whimsical cover art!

This is a neat project and I'm excited to share that my poem, National Aviation Day, will be among the 150+ poems in this anthology. (National Aviation Day is August 19 - mark your calendars!)

Here are a few book details and a chance for a free gift!

Target audience: PreK – Grade 5

For: Public Librarians, School Librarians, K-8 Classroom Teachers, Reading Specialists, and ELL Teachers, and Children (ages 4 and up)

Available in a Teacher/Librarian Edition and a bilingual Student Edition; preorder by February 15 for a free gift!

National Poetry Month is just around the corner...I wonder if there's a poem for that!

At the Heart of Resolution

The turning of each year offers a great opportunity to examine those behaviors that I’d most like to change and then go ahead and try to adjust. In analyzing my behavior, making resolutions, and taking the effort to see them through, I become executive editor in my own life. It’s an important role with an eye on a more desirable future for me, but there are just two problems: Deciding to change is hard. Changing is even harder. I think that’s what has made some resolutions so difficult over the years – I put impossibly big expectations on myself when maybe I’m not ready to make big-leap changes. And then if I don’t meet my grand expectations I feel bad, as though I’ve failed.

It’s such a disappointment to feel like a failure when my intentions are always worthy, so over time I’ve changed how I think about resolutions. At the heart of resolution is solution. A solution doesn’t sound so difficult – I like solving problems. Since I am executive editor in my life, I have resolved that although change is hard, my resolutions don’t have to be – it’s okay to simply solve. As a result, some types of change have become less difficult – true, the stakes and rewards of success are smaller, but so is the risk of failure and the resulting negative emotions. And the result: I’m happier and something actually gets done. And that’s what I’m after: the answer to a problem, the key to a puzzle – fine-tuning shifts that allow me to click some new behavior into place that will help me improve and be successful, no matter how small the change.
I wish you a Happy New Year and all best wishes on seeing through your resolutions, be they big or small.

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This essay was originally posted at Smack Dab in the Middle Blog on 01/14/2015. Thanks for stopping by and for reading!

Pass It On

This is a post from the December 2014 Smack Dab in the Middle blog that I wrote on our December 2014 theme: "Paying it Forward."

Welcome. Gather round the fire, friends. I would like to share the opening lyrics to one of my favorite camp songs from my youth, written by Kurt Kaiser:

It only takes a spark to get a fire going, And soon all those around, can warm up in its glowing.

Image from freedigitalphotos.comThe song is called PASS IT ON. It is a song of faith and, to me, this small phrase perfectly embodies the pay it forward concept. Taken literally, what can be more comforting to a group of people than a roaring fire on a cold late fall day? Taken figuratively, what can be more compelling to a person than being a spark that helps ignite a positive fire in and for others? This month, I went on a search for other pass it on inspiring messages and here’s what I found:

To read more, you can click over to Smack Dab in the Middle Blog.

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Thanks for reading!