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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

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Starbucks Upstander photo

Check out the Starbucks Upstanders series

Have you seen the new orig­i­nal series that Star­bucks is putting out, called Upstanders? It’s real­ly cool! Accord­ing to their web­page: Upstanders is an orig­i­nal col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, films and pod­casts shar­ing the expe­ri­ences of Upstanders – ordi­nary peo­ple doing extra­or­di­nary things to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in their com­mu­ni­ties. Pro­duced by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chan­drasekaran, the Upstanders series

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Two Truths and a Lie cover

Introducing… TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE!

Squee!! In case you missed it yes­ter­day, Mia Wen­jen over at the awe­some book blog Prag­mat­ic Mom host­ed my next book, Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, for a cov­er reveal AND a sneak peek at some of what’s inside! Here’s a tiny look at the cov­er… But, be sure to check out her whole fun post for a big­ger ver­sion, plus an exclu­sive sneak

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Interview: Luke Reynolds on SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL

A cou­ple of weeks ago I reviewed SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL by Luke Reynolds. As you may recall, I LOVED it! Today, Luke was nice enough to let me inter­view him so I could get a few of my ques­tions answered (and let you get to know him a bit bet­ter, as well!). If you haven’t read my review yet, please

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Emmanuel’s Dream a WA State Book Award Finalist!

The Wash­ing­ton Cen­ter for the Book announced the Wash­ing­ton State Book Award final­ists for 2016, and I’m hon­ored to say that Emmanuel’s Dream is among the three final­ists for the Scan­di­uzzi Chil­dren’s Book Award in the Pic­ture Book cat­e­go­ry! The Wash­ing­ton Cen­ter for the Book at The Seat­tle Pub­lic Library announces the Wash­ing­ton State Book Awards final­ists in eight cat­e­gories for outstanding

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Review: SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL

Sur­viv­ing Mid­dle School: Nav­i­gat­ing the Halls, Rid­ing the Social Roller Coast­er, and Unmask­ing the Real You by Luke Reynolds Aladdin/Beyond Words (July 5, 2016) Ages 10–14 192 pages Here’s what the pub­lish­er has to say:  In this hilar­i­ous guide full of hon­est, real-life expe­ri­ences, vet­er­an teacher Luke Reynolds skill­ful­ly and humor­ous­ly shows kids how to not only sur­vive, but thrive and even enjoy the

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ALA Schneider Family Book Award… and photos!

It may have been announced more than six months ago, but the ALA Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award was­n’t actu­al­ly pre­sent­ed until the end of June, at the ALA Annu­al Con­fer­ence in Orlan­do. I final­ly have some pho­tos to share from this won­der­ful event hon­or­ing Emmanuel’s Dream, along with three oth­er won­der­ful books by fab­u­lous authors. None of my flights went

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My Dog Is the Best… in Japanese!

A few months ago I announced that My Dog Is the Best would be trans­lat­ed and sold in Japan­ese. A few days ago, there was a pack­age on my doorstep. I opened it to find these: S U R P R I S E !  =D This is the first for­eign edi­tion I’ve seen of any of my books, so it’s

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Emmanuel prepares for another ride in Ghana!

ModernGhana.com reports “Para Cyclist Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah To Ride For Peace­ful Elec­tions In Ghana.” Emmanuel is prepar­ing once again to cir­cle Ghana, as he did in Emmanuel’s Dream, but this time it will be a peace tour to pro­mote a peace­ful gen­er­al elec­tion. At a press con­fer­ence, he point­ed out that dis­abled peo­ple are among soci­ety’s most vul­ner­a­ble, along with chil­dren and

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MY DOG IS THE BEST cover

Good news for MY DOG IS THE BEST!

I’m tick­led to share some good news about MY DOG IS THE BEST with you today:   First, it was list­ed in the CCBC Choic­es 2016 by the Coop­er­a­tive Children’s Book Cen­ter!   Sec­ond, it was also award­ed a 2015 Blue Rib­bon from The Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Children’s Books (BCCB)!   Third, I worked with Curi­ous City to devel­op a free sto­ry­time and

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