My idea of the perfect weekend begins with this. 
And this. Continue reading
The Perfect Weekend
7
Monthly Archives: September 2012
A FREE MAKEOVER!
No photo needed here! Look at my glob’s entirely new MAKEOVER!!! WOW!!! This was done by a fan’s father. His name is William M. His son asked if I needed any help with my site. I needed so much help I could cry! I could barely stand to look at my glob, and I had sent it out to my librarian and teacher friends with the preface, “read it for content, not for aesthetics.” So William “threw this together” in a couple of hours. Wow. I’m so amazed. He even came up with “your own PDK for writing” (“globby bloogie” came from LeUyen Pham, illustrator of Alvin Ho). And he refused to let me pay him. He’s a DA DAD, that’s for sure!!! I’ve never met the family, but I get their Christmas cards and fan mail from their son Aidan, now in the fourth grade. They live in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. You can see Aidan’s mom’s photography here. Aidan first wrote to me when he could barely write. And he drew fantastic pictures of Alvin Ho. Now he’s typing complete sentences and says he hasn’t had to carry his PDK (Personal Disaster Kit) to school this year. With a dad like that, who needs a PDK? And it appears I don’t need mine anymore either. What a wonderful gift. I am so extremely, deeply grateful. THANK YOU, WILLIAM M! You ROCK!!!
The Color of Water Redux
Yesterday I knew the title of my post sounded vaguely familiar, and the words ‘The Color of Water’ had a nobler use than the one I was putting them to, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it … then in the middle of the night, I knew all at once — and I rushed to my shelves this morning and found: Continue reading
The Color of Water
This is the color of Hoboken’s water today. Actually, it’s a little darker than it appears in the photo. It’s brownish, the color of weak Oolong tea. It’s been this color since I got back from Concord on Monday. First I’d noticed the smell (sulfur?), but it was too late, I was already brushing my teeth with it! Then I noticed the color. Eeeeuw! Gag. SPLOOT! Continue reading
The Robbins House, Concord, MA
Research — to look for something over and over again. Often you don’t know what you’re looking for, but when you find it, you’ll know! Then you look again. And again. And again. Then you find more stuff that you didn’t know you were looking for and it’s all fantastic!
When you’re an author, you do a LOT of re-search. It’s fun!
My Alvin Ho books are set in Concord, Massachusetts, which is hard to spell and is a four-hour drive away with many rest stops and snacking opportunities, so I go to Concord several times a year to visit friends and to look for things to put in my books. I never know what I’m looking for, but I always find something that I’m just dying to use. I was there this week and this is what I found: Continue reading
DEAD BODIES GIVEAWAY
Ha! Made you look!
Tomorrow is the release date of the softcover edition of ALVIN HO ALLERGIC TO DEAD BODIES, FUNERALS AND OTHER FATAL CIRCUMSTANCES!!! Woohoo!!! Yay! Hooray!
To celebrate, I am giving away FIVE, count ’em, Continue reading
The Princeton Children’s Book Festival!
Thank you Dear Readers for coming out to the Princeton Children’s Book Festival today! I really enjoyed meeting many of you. A HUGE thank you and hugs to Allison Santos, the Festival Director and Youth Services Librarian, for making everything wonderful for everyone. And thank you to all the librarians and teachers who stopped by to give me a good word. It means more to me than you know. And thank you to my dear friends Anne-Marie Maman and Anne Cheng who came by with their children to show their support. Continue reading
writers’ breakfast
This is Chocolate Babka:
I don’t know what it tastes like, but I understand it’s a chocolate bread that’s very moist and yummy. This particular loaf was found at Russ&Daughters today in the Lower East Side. Continue reading
lumbering into the 21st century finally!
Hello Dear Readers! I’ve enjoyed meeting many of you during school visits and so many of you have SOOO ENTHUSIASTICALLY told me that you want to be authors. So I thought it would be fun to start this blog to show you all the stuff you have to do when you’re an author. If you want the real scoop on how a book is made, this is the place! Continue reading
a globby bloogie by lenore look 