February 2026 news (and 2025 year-end review)

It’s been a long time since I’ve sent out a newslet­ter, so this is way over­due. Sorry!

I’ve been work­ing on a few dif­fer­ent projects: sev­er­al pic­ture books and a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion pro­pos­al. I expect I’ll be dust­ing off my nov­el man­u­script this year, too. I’m look­ing for­ward to a bunch of upcom­ing speak­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and a new book com­ing in May 2027: Newton’s Paws of Motion!

I’ve also been keep­ing busy with cli­mate advo­ca­cy volunteering—including coor­di­nat­ing a recent trip to Olympia for 15 stu­dents and 13 adult chap­er­ones, where the stu­dents lob­bied 10 of our state leg­is­la­tors for four dif­fer­ent cli­mate-friend­ly poli­cies. It was a suc­cess­ful trip, and it felt good to make a difference—for the cli­mate and for the kids.

In per­son­al news, my old­est kid­do just fin­ished their Master’s degree in bioin­for­mat­ics and bought a house in Den­mark, so I’m look­ing for­ward to vis­it­ing them there again this year, along with some oth­er fun trips to places I’ve nev­er been before!

I hope you and yours are safe and well. 💜

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The whole series, now in board book!

You Are a Robin! and You Are a Garter Snake! both recent­ly released in board book for­mat, so now your lit­tlest read­ers can own the whole set. All the books in the Meet Your World series use move­ment and pre­tend play to intro­duce young read­ers to ani­mals that most like­ly live in their neigh­bor­hoods… AND to the joy of reading!

Buy now

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2025 in review:

I always like to sit down and reflect on the past year as we move into a new one. Here are some of the highlights:

• I got back on my feet after break­ing and bad­ly sprain­ing my ankle at the end of 2024.
• I got to vis­it my fam­i­ly in Wis­con­sin and lat­er in Michigan.
• I led the event plan­ning for and mod­er­at­ed a pan­el at the Cit­i­zens’ Cli­mate Lobby’s Greater Pacif­ic North­west region­al conference.
• I sold a man­u­script (Newton’s Paws of Motion, com­ing in May 2027 from Source­books Xpress)!
• I par­tic­i­pat­ed month­ly in a cit­i­zen sci­ence pro­gram to mon­i­tor amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions in a near­by park.
• I bought a new car (an all-elec­tric Hon­da Prologue).
• I got to spend time with my old­est kid­do when they came back to the U.S. to attend a friend’s wed­ding on Orcas Island.
• I lob­bied for cli­mate poli­cies in per­son in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and virtually.
• I researched and made progress on a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion pro­pos­al, but have since shelved it (at least for the time being). 
• I fin­ished one non­fic­tion pic­ture book poet­ry man­u­script and start­ed anoth­er one (alas, poet­ry pic­ture books are a tough sell these days!).
• I researched and start­ed draft­ing anoth­er non­fic­tion pic­ture book (NOT poetry).
• I revised an old non­fic­tion pic­ture book (but it still needs more work).
• I wrote an arti­cle for the SCBWI’s Essen­tial Guide to Pub­lish­ing for Children.
• I got a let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished in the Seat­tle Times.
• I pre­sent­ed at five school vis­its, one library event, five Meet Your World sto­ry walks, the Wash­ing­ton Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence, Kin­dling Words West, an adult writ­ing for chil­dren course, and the Pouls­bo Book Festival.
• I plant­ed dozens of trees and removed inva­sive plants in our local parks.
• I saw a ton of spec­tac­u­lar plays and musicals.
• I got to spend lots of qual­i­ty time with fam­i­ly, friends, and pets. 

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Favorite reads of 2025:

I enjoyed a lot of great books last year, so I want­ed to share a few of my favorites with you. In no par­tic­u­lar order, here they are:

Pic­ture book fiction:

• Grace Builds an Almost Per­fect Dog by Cur­tis Man­ley and Tra­cy Subisak
• This Wolf Was Dif­fer­ent by Katie Sliven­sky and Han­nah Salyer
• Blue by Suzanne Kaufman
• There’s Some­thing Odd About the Babysit­ter by Elayne Crain and John Ledda
• The Rid­ing Les­son by Jen­nifer K. Mann

Pic­ture book nonfiction:

• From BAM! to BURP!: A Car­bon Atom’s Nev­er-End­ing Jour­ney Through Space and Time and YOU by Melis­sa Stew­art and Mar­ta Alvarez Miguens
• On an Ocean Jour­ney: Ani­mals in Motion Through the Seas by Eliz­a­beth Shree­ve and Ray Troll
• Flur­ry, Float, and Fly!: The Sto­ry of a Snow­storm by Lau­ra Pur­die Salas and Chiara Fedele
• Bounce! A Sci­en­tif­ic His­to­ry of Rub­ber by Sarah Albee
• Ped­al Push­er: How One Woman’s Bicy­cle Adven­ture Helped Change the World by Mary Boone and Lisa Anchin
• Almost Under­wear by Jonathan Roth

Mid­dle grade fiction:

• The Unex­pect­ed Lives of Ordi­nary Girls by J. Ander­son Coats
• Pre­med­i­tat­ed Myr­tle by Eliz­a­beth Bunce
• Annie Cal­i­for­nia by Mar­garet Kellerman

Mid­dle grade nonfiction:

• Eat­ing to Save the Plan­et: How Veg­an­ism Helps Fight Cli­mate Change by Anne Broyles

Adult fic­tion:

• The Once and Future Witch­es by Alix E. Harrow
• Star­ling House by Alix E. Harrow
• The Moun­tain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
• Wey­ward by Emil­ia Hart
• The Sirens by Emil­ia Hart
• The Lost Apothe­cary by Sarah Penner
• The Sto­ry Col­lec­tor by Evie Woods
• The Lost Book­shop by Evie Woods
• Some­where Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
• Remark­ably Bright Crea­tures by Shel­by Van Pelt
• Brig­ands and Bread­knives by Travis Baldree

Adult non­fic­tion:

• Blue­print for a Rev­o­lu­tion by Srd­ja Popovic
• Wild­ly Inspired by Joni Sensel
• Big­ger by Ren Cedar Fuller

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Upcoming events:

• Feb 4: Author vis­it at St. Louise Elementary
• Feb 10: Lit­er­a­cy night at Apol­lo Elementary
• Mar 1: Attendee at nErD­camp Bellingham
• Mar 2: Author vis­it at Ben Franklin Elementary
• Mar 17: Keynote speak­er at Taco­ma Pub­lic Schools High­ly Capa­ble seminar
• Mar 31-Apr 8: Vacation! 
• May 2: Break­out speak­er at SCBWI-WWA con­fer­ence
• May 11–18: Attendee at Kin­dling Words West on Whid­bey Island
• Jul 14–15: Library pre­sen­ta­tions at Sequim, Forks, and Port Angeles

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I’d love to hear from you! Please drop me a line any­time. And thanks for reading!