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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Review: NEW SHOES by Susan Lynn Meyer

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NEW SHOES cover
NEW SHOES
writ­ten by Susan Lynn Mey­er
illus­trat­ed by Eric Velasquez
pub­lished by Hol­i­day House (Feb­ru­ary 2015)

It’s not easy to write a pic­ture book for young kids that tack­les a tough sub­ject in an age-appro­pri­ate way. And it’s even hard­er to do so while still being enter­tain­ing. NEW SHOES by Susan Lynn Mey­er does all of that and more, and it does it so very beautifully.
Pub­lish­er’s summary:

Set in the South dur­ing the time of seg­re­ga­tion, this lush­ly illus­trat­ed pic­ture book brings the civ­il rights era to life for con­tem­po­rary read­ers as two young girls find an inven­tive way to foil Jim Crow laws.
When her cous­in’s hand-me-down shoes don’t fit, it is time for Ella Mae to get new ones. She is ecsta­t­ic, but when she and her moth­er arrive at Mr. John­son’s shoe store, her hap­pi­ness quick­ly turns to dejec­tion. Ella Mae is unable to try on the shoes because of her skin col­or. Deter­mined to fight back, Ella Mae and her cousin Char­lotte work tire­less­ly to col­lect and restore old shoes, wip­ing, wash­ing, and pol­ish­ing them to per­fec­tion. The girls then have their very own shoe sale, giv­ing the oth­er African Amer­i­can mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ty a place to buy shoes where they can be treat­ed fair­ly and “try on all the shoes they want.”

It’s hard for me to imag­ine not being allowed to try on shoes, and I must admit I nev­er even real­ized that par­tic­u­lar injus­tice was part of the Jim Crow laws. I’m glad to have been enlight­ened. Want­i­ng to try on a pair of shoes is some­thing that can be eas­i­ly under­stood by young chil­dren, and they will be able to appre­ci­ate the unfair­ness of the sit­u­a­tion in the shoe store.
What I real­ly love about this book, though, is how the girls solve the prob­lem them­selves. They work hard to earn start­up funds, they take great care and pride in launch­ing their shoe store, and they solve a prob­lem not just for them­selves, but for their whole com­mu­ni­ty! That is change­mak­ing at its finest.
This mov­ing and inspi­ra­tional pic­ture book belongs in every class­room in Amer­i­ca. To make it even eas­i­er, the pub­lish­er’s web page for the book has class­room dis­cus­sion ques­tions and an edu­ca­tor’s guide, both with Com­mon Core State Stan­dards (CCSS) connections.
I hope you’ll check out NEW SHOES… and share it with others!

Let’s celebrate with a giveaway (or four)!

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MY DOG IS THE BEST cover

I’m so hap­py about the recent acco­lades my books have received that I’ve decid­ed to host not just one giveaway–but FOUR!
To cel­e­brate the fact that BE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS was a final­ist for the Cybils awards, I’ll be giv­ing away a signed copy of the paper­back edi­tion on Goodreads, here:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Be a Changemaker by Laurie Ann Thompson

Be a Changemaker

by Laurie Ann Thompson

Give­away ends April 02, 2015. 

See the give­away details
at Goodreads. 

Enter to win


To cel­e­brate the starred review from School Library Jour­nal for EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH, I’ll be giv­ing away a signed copy on Goodreads, here:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Emmanuel's Dream by Laurie Ann Thompson

Emmanuel’s Dream

by Laurie Ann Thompson

Give­away ends April 02, 2015. 

See the give­away details
at Goodreads. 

Enter to win


AND, I’ll give away a signed copy of either one (win­ners get to choose!) to two ran­dom sub­scribers to my mail­ing list. If you’re not a sub­scriber yet, just sign up below. (I only send a short newslet­ter once/month.)

Subscribe to my mailing list

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Email For­mat

MY DOG IS THE BEST coverFinal­ly, School Library Jour­nal recent­ly called my upcom­ing release “well-exe­cut­ed and charm­ing.” I can’t give this one away just yet (it will release on June 9, 2015), but feel free to share the MY DOG IS THE BEST love by adding it to your Goodreads shelf and/or pre-order­ing it at one of the fol­low­ing links:
My Dog Is the Best


A Starred Review for Emmanuel’s Dream!

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star

star
Emmanuel’s Dream received its first starred review, and it’s from School Library Jour­nal! They called the book,

“a tri­umph.”

And they also said,

“This pow­er­ful and win­ning pic­ture book tells the sto­ry of a young man over­com­ing the odds.”

and

“This uplift­ing account will res­onate with read­ers and sup­ple­ment glob­al and cul­tur­al studies.”

You can read the full review here!

And, just for fun, here’s a cool video that John Schu made of the win­dow dis­play at Unabridged Book­store in Chica­go. It’s in great com­pa­ny, don’t you think? It’s always excit­ing to see one of my books out in the wild, so if you spot one, please share!

Authors LOVE Teachers, with a HUGE book #giveaway!

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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

Fan mail for Emmanuel’s Dream

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It’s always a treat to receive an email like this from a parent:

Last night I read your book to my younger daugh­ter.… She loved the book, and decid­ed it was her new favorite and she want­ed to take it to school when it was her stu­dent spot­light week. Today she and [her broth­er] were fight­ing over it in the car, and I read it to each of them for a bed­time sto­ry. At least this week, it’s a house­hold favorite!

It’s espe­cial­ly great to know that Emmanuel’s sto­ry is touch­ing young read­ers as much as it touched me.

The Emmanuel’s Dream book launch party!

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poster

With the hol­i­days right before, I must admit that the launch par­ty day sort of snuck up on me. I was rush­ing to get every­thing ready, had to give up on some things that I want­ed to do, and did­n’t have as much time as I would’ve liked to pre­pare. Still, I think a great time was had by all. I know I enjoyed every minute!

poster
Check out the awe­some poster they had up!

books
Look at all those books for sale!

writing buddies
Local writ­ing bud­dies, includ­ing cur­rent Emu’s Debut blog­ger (and the next one of us to launch!), Kevan Atte­ber­ry!

presentation
Dur­ing the presentation

speaking
Clutch­ing the mic for dear life, apparently.

audience
The audi­ence lis­ten­ing to my talk.

line
Can you believe this line of peo­ple wait­ing to get their books signed?

signing
Sign­ing books is even hard­er when you have to stop and pose for photos.

J. Anderson Coats
Rec­og­nize this Emu’s Debuts emer­i­tus and found­ing mem­ber? It’s J. Ander­son Coats!

a young fan
Young fans are the best fans.

Many thanks to Emmanuel for inspir­ing me; to Sean Qualls for his beau­ti­ful art­work; to my fam­i­ly for sup­port­ing me all this time; to my cri­tique group for help­ing the man­u­script rise above the slush (espe­cial­ly Dana Sul­li­van, for tak­ing these great pic­tures for me!); to my agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, for not giv­ing up; to the Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store in Belle­vue and their event plan­ner, Olivia Ahl, for throw­ing such a won­der­ful par­ty; and to all the friends, writ­ers, teach­ers, par­ents, neigh­bors, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who took the time to come out and cheer me–and the book–on last Tues­day night. You all ROCK, and I am one extreme­ly lucky gal! xoxo

Be a Changemaker is a Cybils award finalist!

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I woke up this morn­ing to news that Be a Change­mak­er made the list of final­ists for the 2014 Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­ger’s Lit­er­ary Award, bet­ter known as the Cybils, in the Non­fic­tion for Young Adults cat­e­go­ry. What a way to kick off 2015!
The nom­i­na­tions in this cat­e­go­ry were var­ied and impres­sive, and the books that made the final­ist list are tru­ly among the best I’ve read all year. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have my book in such amaz­ing company!

Alice + Freda cover Alice + Fre­da For­ev­er: A Mur­der in Mem­phis by Alex­is Coe
Be a Changemaker cover Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing That Mat­ters by Lau­rie Ann Thompson
Beyond Magenta cover Beyond Magen­ta: Trans­gen­der Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
Popular cover Pop­u­lar: Vin­tage Wis­dom for a Mod­ern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen
Family Romanov cover The Fam­i­ly Romanov: Mur­der, Rebel­lion, and the Fall of Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia by Can­dace Fleming
Freedom Summer Murders cover The Free­dom Sum­mer Mur­ders by Don Mitchell
Port Chicago 50 cover The Port Chica­go 50: Dis­as­ter, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civ­il Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Thanks, Pat Ziet­low Miller, for nom­i­nat­ing it in the first place. Thanks, Stephanie Charlefour at Love. Life. Read., for the final­ist write-up, and to the entire pan­el (also includ­ing Aaron Mau­r­er from Cof­fee for the Brain, Michelle Lock­wood from Blogs Like a Girl, Karen Ball from Mrs. B’s Favorites, and Danyelle Leach from Book­shelves in the Cul-de–Sac) for read­ing, con­sid­er­ing, and ulti­mate­ly select­ing it. I’ve been a first round Cybils judge twice and am a sec­ond round judge in a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry this year, so I know what a lot of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion goes into it! Final­ly, thanks to the peo­ple who keep the Cybils run­ning. It’s one of my favorite awards in chil­dren’s books as a read­er, author, and judge. I’m always glad to be a part of it, so hav­ing my own book make that final­ist list means even more to me. Kidlit blog­gers ROCK! 🙂

In which I make my podcast debut on The Artist Rolls!

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As I’ve men­tioned before, I love lis­ten­ing to pod­casts. One of my favorites is The Artist Rolls.
The Artist Rolls logo
On The Artist Rolls, Sean and Jamie ask their cre­ative guests to fill out a form loose­ly inspired by char­ac­ter sheets from role-play­ing games like Dun­geons and Drag­ons. They use these char­ac­ter sheets to help explore and dis­cuss how each guest divides their time across the many dif­fer­ent roles cre­ative peo­ple must take on, what medi­ums they use to do their work, what their per­son­al work style is, and how they view their own skill set. They incor­po­rate dice to ran­dom­ize the con­ver­sa­tion, graphs to help visu­al­ize it, and humor and heart to bring it to life. It’s a fun way to learn about oth­er peo­ple’s cre­ative process­es and challenges.

Sean and Jamie, the hosts of The Artist Rolls
Sean and Jamie, the tal­ent­ed hosts of The Artist Rolls

I was intro­duced to The Artist Rolls by my good friend (and amaz­ing col­lage artist!) Liz Ruest. Since then, I’ve enjoyed lis­ten­ing to and learn­ing from many of their chats with oth­er cre­ative types, so it was a thrill to be able to par­tic­i­pate in one myself, made even more excit­ing by the fact that it was my pod­cast debut! I revealed much of my nerdy nature and con­sis­tent­ly rolled well below aver­age, but oth­er than that I don’t think I embar­rassed myself too bad­ly. Check it out for your­self by click­ing below:

The Artist Rolls, Episode 26 — Lau­rie Thomp­son Reminds Us to “Do Unto Others”

Need a gift idea for a teen in your life?

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Be a Changemaker gift wrapped

Last Fri­day, I had the great plea­sure of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Annu­al Hol­i­day & Ben­e­fit Par­ty at Park­place Books, a love­ly inde­pen­dent book­store in Kirk­land, WA. The event was fes­tive and well attend­ed, and I had the chance to talk with some of my favorite local authors as well as many of the cus­tomers who came in to see us.
I also got to sign a lot of books: it seems Be a Change­mak­er is a hit for hol­i­day gift giving!
Be a Changemaker gift wrapped
For the teens (and adults) on your list, you can buy BE A CHANGEMAKER at your local inde­pen­dent book­store (find them on IndieBound), or online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s.
And, if you need more book­ish gift ideas for teens this hol­i­day sea­son, check out this post from the Teen Librar­i­an’s Tool­box on how to buy books for the teens (or any­one, real­ly) on your shop­ping list.
Hap­py holidays!

Bow image originally from Joanne, on Flickr: “02/05/2014: Brown bow tied onto package”.

 

3 easy ways to help an author

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book shelves

Many peo­ple have asked me what they can do to help pro­mote my book. Many oth­ers have already helped in ways both big and small, and I’m grate­ful for each and every one. If you’ve ever won­dered how to help an author friend, here are some quick, easy things you can do that will have a big impact.
1. If you can, buy the book… for your­self and for others!

  • Day 193: The Bluest EyeBooks make great gifts, so con­sid­er hol­i­days, birth­days, and oth­er cel­e­bra­tions as well as grad­u­a­tions, retire­ments, new babies, and oth­er mile­stones com­ing up in the lives of your friends, fam­i­ly, teach­ers and coach­es, and co-workers.
  • Many places are thrilled to receive dona­tions of new books, too. Think about buy­ing extra copies for your local food bank, hos­pi­tal, shel­ters, schools, and libraries.

2. Help get the word out. 

  • Ask your local book­store if they car­ry the book. If you’re bold, you can even tell them why they might want to con­sid­er stock­ing it!
  • Request the book from your local library, and then check it out when it arrives.
  • book shelvesAsk for help find­ing it on the shelf in book­stores and libraries, even if you already know where it is, so the book­sellers and librar­i­ans will know where it is, too!
  • Ask the author for some book­marks or oth­er swag, which you can hand out to book­store employ­ees, librar­i­ans, and teach­ers or leave behind in cof­fee shops, doctor’s offices, wait­ing rooms, etc. as appropriate.
  • Share pho­tos of “in the wild” sight­ings of the book to increase aware­ness of the cov­er and title.

3. If you like the book, share your thoughts with others!

  • Add to GoodreadsWrite a nice review on Ama­zon, BN.com, Goodreads, and/or else­where. It doesn’t have to be long or pro­found: Five stars and a sim­ple “Loved it!” can go a long way!
  • Mark well-writ­ten good reviews you see on those sites as help­ful (and, con­verse­ly, if you see reviews that are just mean or unfair, mark them as not helpful).
  • Share your thoughts on the book with your friends and fol­low­ers on your social media out­lets like your blog, Tum­blr, Face­book, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, etc.
  • Tell the author! Not all reviews are pos­i­tive, and hear­ing from some­one who liked the book might be just what the author needs.

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