Happy holidays (and a gift idea)!


Are you buy­ing any of my books to give as a gift this hol­i­day sea­son? If so, thank you!
I’d be thrilled to send you a signed book­plate and some book swag for you to include with your gift. Just send an email to laurie@lauriethompson.com with the details (which book, to whom it should be per­son­al­ized, and what mail­ing address you’d like it sent to), and I’ll pop them in the mail for you ASAP.
And, again, thank you! It’s like giv­ing a gift to me, too. =D
Be a Changemaker gift wrapped

Books can open doors to inclusivity

Many of us who write books for chil­dren, rec­om­mend books for chil­dren, and teach chil­dren to read books have been won­der­ing late­ly what more we can do to move the world for­ward to have more inclu­siv­i­ty, com­pas­sion, and empa­thy. We’ve been won­der­ing if our efforts real­ly make a dif­fer­ence. We may have been tempt­ed to pull back, to retreat, to avoid the dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions and inter­ac­tions. But some­times push­ing past the dis­com­fort and mak­ing an hon­est con­nec­tion can make all the dif­fer­ence in the world.
I just read a beau­ti­ful arti­cle in the Wash­ing­ton Post writ­ten by fel­low kidlit author and agency-mate Suzanne Nel­son. In the arti­cle, Suzanne writes about a birth­day par­ty that she did­n’t go to because the girl was hear­ing impaired and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with her was awk­ward. She writes about how she still has­n’t been able to for­give her­self for mak­ing that cow­ard­ly deci­sion. And she writes about how we can help oth­ers avoid act­ing similarly:

Every moment we share books, music, con­ver­sa­tion, or meals with peo­ple who might not be com­plete­ly like us, is one moment more that we ben­e­fit and grow as human beings, that we rec­og­nize the beau­ty, flu­id­i­ty, and worth of our dif­fer­ences. And the more we do this as adults, the more our chil­dren rec­og­nize how to inter­act, how to have empa­thy. We all have moments when we are less than kind, less than tol­er­ant, less than the peo­ple we strive to be. With expo­sure, con­tact, and edu­ca­tion, I hope my chil­dren grow up to have few­er of them. Maybe they’ll walk through that door, and maybe they’ll go to that party. 

The arti­cle remind­ed me of a woman I was friends with in col­lege. I met her when I was work­ing as an assis­tant in the com­put­er lab. She often need­ed help. She was in a motor­ized wheel­chair. She was elder­ly. She had cere­bral pal­sy. She could bare­ly talk. She made the let­ters on the screen so big she could only read a few words at a time. She would type her papers one dif­fi­cult key­stroke at a time, jab­bing at the key­board with a fat pen­cil. She often missed and had to go back and try again, some­times shriek­ing in anger. It was painstak­ing to watch, and yet I admired her deter­mi­na­tion. Were any of the rest of us tak­ing our edu­ca­tion that seri­ous­ly? Would any of the rest of us have will­ing­ly put our­selves through that frus­tra­tion and embar­rass­ment every sin­gle evening and weekend?
Over time, I got to know her bet­ter. I start­ed being able to deci­pher her slurred speech and have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with her. Despite the com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers and the gen­er­a­tion gap, we became friends. Some­times when she saw me out­side of the lab she would get so excit­ed that she would smile and laugh, which often result­ed in drool and spit­ting. Peo­ple around us would recoil in dis­gust. I had too, ini­tial­ly, but what’s a lit­tle spit among friends? When I invit­ed my boyfriend, who is now my hus­band, to vis­it me at col­lege, we made plans to go out to din­ner with her. She knew how I felt about him and was joy­ous at meet­ing him, so piz­za and drool were fly­ing every­where, often spray­ing us and our plates. I was wor­ried that he’d be upset with me for putting him through this, but the entire meal he treat­ed her with respect and inter­est. He wait­ed for me to trans­late her speech so he could con­verse with her. After­ward, he said some­thing to the effect of, “What an inter­est­ing, amaz­ing woman. I can see why you like her.” I fell in love with him all over again because of that interaction.
My life has been for­ev­er enriched by know­ing her and oth­ers like her. So, I urge you to read Suzan­ne’s whole arti­cle, here. I urge you to write, rec­om­mend, and teach books that will help chil­dren choose kind­ness and inclu­siv­i­ty and to val­ue all kinds of peo­ple of all abil­i­ties, races, reli­gions, ori­en­ta­tions, iden­ti­ties, etc. And I urge you to take a risk, seek con­nec­tion over com­fort, and make sure you go to that party.
Here are some pos­si­ble books to start with:

Authors LOVE Teachers, with a HUGE book #giveaway!

Teaching Is a Work of Heart
Teaching Is a Work of HeartHap­py Valen­tine’s Day to teach­ers and teacher/librarians!

 

I’ve nev­er been very much into Valen­tine’s Day, but when Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt invit­ed me to par­tic­i­pate in this awe­some book give­away for teach­ers, I jumped at the chance! Authors do love teach­ers, and gen­er­al­ly, teach­ers love books, so it’s a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to show a lit­tle love to those who are so often under-appreciated.

Just check out all of the amaz­ing SIGNED books that will be won by one lucky teacher:

Beetle Busters coverBlue Birds coverBrown Girl Dreaming coverEmmanuel's Dream coverFish in a Tree coverThe Gossip File coverHowto Outswim a Shark Without a Snorkel coverMark of the Thief coverOn the Road to Mr. Mineo's coverOne Witch at a Time coverPaper Things coverRandom Body Parts coverWalk Two Moons coverThe Way to Stay in Destiny coverWhy'd They Wear That coverWish Girl cover

To enter to win this fab­u­lous give­away, teach­ers and teacher-librar­i­ans just need to:
1) Leave a com­ment on Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt’s blog about any­thing you wish.
OR
2) Share a post on Twit­ter with a link to this blog post and the hash­tag #MGAu­thorsLoveTeach­ers.
OR
3) RT some­one else’s tweet with both the blog post link and hashtag.

 

Rules:
***Give­away ends on Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th, at 11:59 p.m. Win­ner will be announced on the 19th.
1) This is to show our appre­ci­a­tion for teach­ers and librar­i­ans, specif­i­cal­ly. There­fore, the win­ner must have a school mail­ing address and be present­ly employed at that school.
***2) Please remem­ber this give­away is all about appre­ci­a­tion. We know that teach­ers do not get the appre­ci­a­tion they deserve. This give­away is a reminder that WE appre­ci­ate TEACHERS. They are often the ones putting our books into the hands of the read­ers who need them. For that we are tru­ly grate­ful. THANK YOU for what you do everyday–and for vis­it­ing our giveaway!

 

But wait, there’s more.… Sev­er­al YA authors have also band­ed togeth­er to show their love of and appre­ci­a­tion for teach­ers by giv­ing away their books, too! For more infor­ma­tion about the #YAAu­thorsLoveTeach­ers give­away, click here.

 

Whether you’re a teacher or not, please share this post with all of your favorite teach­ers and teacher-librar­i­ans so they can enter the give­aways, and don’t for­get to show them a lit­tle extra love!

Thank You

The writing process blog tour is here!

You may have seen this meme going around on var­i­ous author and/or illus­tra­tor blogs where peo­ple answer ques­tions about their writ­ing process. I’ve been enjoy­ing read­ing oth­er peo­ple’s answers and learn­ing from their thoughts about process, so when I was tagged by my tal­ent­ed author/illustrator friend, Jen­nifer K. Mann, I decid­ed to add a post about my process here. Enjoy!

Jennifer K. Mann
Jenn and some feath­ered friends

Jenn has been on a roll late­ly! Her first illus­trat­ed book, TURKEY TOT, writ­ten by George Shan­non, just came out last Octo­ber. TWO SPECKLED EGGS, her first author/illustrator debut, just came out in April. And she’s just fin­ish­ing up the final art for I DEFINITELY WILL NEVER GET A STAR ON MRS BENSON’S BLACKBOARD, which will come out next year. You can read about Jen­n’s writ­ing and illus­trat­ing process here. Thanks for tag­ging me, Jenn! Let the Q&A begin…
 

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