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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Review: EAVESDROPPING ON ELEPHANTS

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Zoo Scientists cover

Eavesdropping on Elephants cover

EAVESDROPPING ON ELEPHANTS
by Patri­cia Newman
Mill­brook Press/August 1, 2018
Grades 4–8, 56 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

Can under­stand­ing how for­est ele­phants com­mu­ni­cate help sci­en­tists find ways to pro­tect this vul­ner­a­ble species? Researcher Katy Pane and oth­ers involved with Cor­nell University’s Ele­phant Lis­ten­ing Project believe it can. Patri­cia New­man takes read­ers behind the scenes to see how sci­en­tists are mak­ing new dis­cov­er­ies about ele­phant com­mu­ni­ca­tion and using what they learn to help these majes­tic animals.
Fea­tures: Author/Illustrator biog­ra­phy, Bibliography/further read­ing, Glos­sary, Index, Maps, Page Plus, Pri­ma­ry source quotations/images, and Reviewed

And what the crit­ics say:

  • A Junior Library Guild Selection
  • “An invit­ing intro­duc­tion to biol­o­gists at work.” —Book­list
  • “…this book does an excel­lent job of trans­port­ing read­ers and pro­vid­ing a clear, mul­ti­fac­eted pic­ture of African for­est elephants…“The more you lis­ten to wildlife, the more your mind opens up to new ideas about why the world is a place worth sav­ing.” VERDICT A great pick for mid­dle school non­fic­tion col­lec­tions.” —School Library Journal
  • “Fas­ci­nat­ing for earnest con­ser­va­tion­ists.” —Kirkus Reviews

And here are my thoughts:
Patri­cia New­man does it again, with anoth­er engag­ing piece of nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion! This is a high­ly engag­ing read about the less well-known African for­est ele­phants and sev­er­al of the sci­en­tists who study them. The sci­ence here–bioacoustics–is quite inter­est­ing and the human sto­ries give it a per­son­al touch. I always appre­ci­ate when we get to see how sci­en­tists real­ly work, and it’s espe­cial­ly reward­ing to get a peek at how they col­lab­o­rate with one anoth­er on their sep­a­rate-but-relat­ed research projects. The book also men­tions some of the con­ser­va­tion aspects involved and even how kids can par­tic­i­pate if they’re so inspired. An added bonus is that most of the sci­en­tists in the book hap­pen to be women, which is so impor­tant for show­ing young girls that they can indeed have an impor­tant career in the sciences.
Final­ly, watch the trail­er to see–and hear–some of the ani­mals from the book!

Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

2018 CYBILS Round 1 judge

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2018 Cybils Round 1 Judge logo
2018 CYBILS, here I come! I’m excit­ed to share that I’ll be a CYBILS judge again this year. The CYBILS Awards rec­og­nize authors and illus­tra­tors whose books for chil­dren and young adults com­bine both lit­er­ary mer­it and pop­u­lar appeal. In the past, I’ve always helped with judg­ing the younger non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry (Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books in 2011 and 2012, and Elementary/Middle Grade Non­fic­tion in 2014). This time around, how­ev­er, I’ll be a Round 1 Judge in the Junior/Senior High Non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry, along with the fol­low­ing tal­ent­ed bloggers:

Nom­i­na­tions will open on Octo­ber 1st, and our short­lists will be due in Decem­ber. There are usu­al­ly around 70 entries, so I’ll be doing a LOT of read­ing in the com­ing months. (And hope­ful­ly a lot of blog­ging, too–get ready for those reviews!) Final­ists will be announced in Jan­u­ary, and win­ners are announced in February.
2018 Cybils logo
 

The Histories and Mysteries blog tour roundup

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Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
Our lat­est in the Two Truths and a Lie series, His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies, has been out for a few weeks now, and we were lucky enough to have it hit the web for its offi­cial blog tour right around pub­li­ca­tion day. Now that the dust has start­ed to set­tle a bit, I want­ed to share all of the in-depth reviews, edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als, and bonus con­tent that appeared over the course of the tour.

Many, many thanks to the hard-work­ing blog­gers who help share the book love and get the word out to book buy­ers and read­ers! Also, thank you yet again to the excel­lent folks at Walden Pond Press who put this event togeth­er. xoxo
You can find out more about the book and grab your copy here or here.

Launch party recap for Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries

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Bookstore window display

I want­ed to share some of my favorite pho­tos from the Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies launch par­ty last Sat­ur­day at Brick and Mor­tar Books:

Bookstore window displayThis is the win­dow dis­play that greet­ed us when we arrived at Brick and Mor­tar Books! So nice!!

Bookstore table displayThey had loads of books ready for sale!

book signing The sign­ing line starts to form.

Laurie Ann Thompson signing a bookFun sign­ing books!

signing lineSign­ing line in progress.

Bookstore endcap displayBrick and Mor­tar even had a full end cap display!

What a great day! A huge thank you to Brick and Mor­tar Books for being such an amaz­ing host and to every­one who was able to make it. Brick and Mor­tar Books still has signed copies of all of the books, so feel free to stop in if you need any for your col­lec­tion! =D

Happy book birthday to Histories and Mysteries!

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Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES is final­ly here! It takes a lot of peo­ple work­ing togeth­er to cre­ate a book, and this book had such an amaz­ing team behind it. Many, many thanks to my co-author, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte; our agent, Erin Mur­phy; our edi­tor, Jor­dan Brown; and all the won­der­ful folks at Walden Pond Press and Harper­Collins. It’s been an hon­or and a joy to work with you all!
So, what’s this book all about? Well…

Did you know that a young girl once saved an entire beach com­mu­ni­ty from a dev­as­tat­ing tsuna­mi thanks to some­thing she learned in her fourth-grade geog­ra­phy les­son? Or that there is a per­son alive today who gen­er­ates her own mag­net­ic field? Or how about the fact that Ben­jamin Franklin once chal­lenged the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Brus­sels to devise a way to make farts smell good?
You know the game: Every sto­ry in this book is strange and astound­ing, but one out of every three is an out­right lie. Some false sto­ries are based on truth, and some of the true sto­ries are just plain unbe­liev­able! Don’t be fooled by the pho­tos that accom­pa­ny each story—it’s going to take all your smarts and some clever research to root out the alter­na­tive facts. Don’t believe every­thing you read! (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins, June 2018)

Reviews:
“With the phrase ‘fake news’ being tossed around a great deal these days, this col­lec­tion of sto­ries in which one out of every three is a lie is both time­ly and enter­tain­ing…. Read­ers with a taste for triv­ia and the strange-but-true aspects of geog­ra­phy and his­to­ry will find much to enjoy.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Even dyed-in-the-wool skep­tics will be hard put to spot the ringers: foot­prints embed­ded in sand­stone on the roof of Kentucky’s Mam­moth Caves, den­tal fill­ings more than 12,000 years old, or a trove of lead tiles embed­ded with ancient Roman curs­es? Along with sug­ges­tions for side projects and dis­cus­sions, the authors offer fact lists con­tain­ing one false fac­toid as extra chal­lenges to read­ers’ creduli­ty. Hap­pi­ly, the back mat­ter includes expla­na­tions that iden­ti­fy the baloney, as well as a savvy guide to eval­u­at­ing infor­ma­tion sources.” —Book­list

Amazon logo Barnes and Noble logo indiesRed1_161x41_10-26-15 Powell's logo HarperCollins logo

Signed copies are avail­able from Brick and Mor­tar Books! 

GIF of Peanuts celebrating
 

What to read on World Refugee Day

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World Refugee Day poster
PDF avail­able from Library Graph­ics
(click image for info)

Can you imag­ine becom­ing a refugee, need­ing to leave your house sud­den­ly with no plans, lit­tle idea of where to go, and the knowl­edge that you may nev­er return? Every day chil­dren and their fam­i­lies are being forced to flee their homes, com­mu­ni­ties, and coun­tries around the world just to stay alive. Today, June 20th, is World Refugee Day, held by the Unit­ed Nations every year to com­mem­o­rate the strength, courage, and per­se­ver­ance of mil­lions of refugees. How can we talk about this real­i­ty with chil­dren? Here are a few help­ful resources:
RefugeeOne headerRefugeeOne has put togeth­er a fan­tas­tic down­load­able PDF enti­tled Lit­er­a­ture for Chil­dren and Ado­les­cents about the Refugee and Immi­grant Expe­ri­ence. It’s sort­ed by age groups, main­ly accord­ing to read­ing level.
BRYCS logoBridg­ing Refugee Youth and Chil­dren’s Ser­vices (BRYCS) has curat­ed an exten­sive list of Chil­dren’s Books about the Refugee/Immigrant Expe­ri­ence.
Brightly logoAuthor Olugbe­miso­la Rhu­day-Perkovich has com­piled a list of Books to Help Kids Under­stand What It’s Like to Be a Refugee for Brightly.
SPL logoThe Seat­tle Kids Librar­i­ans at The Seat­tle Pub­lic Library have com­piled a list called The Immi­grant and Refugee Expe­ri­ence in Chil­dren’s Books.
IHE logoThe Insti­tute for Humane Edu­ca­tion has put togeth­er this list of 16 Children’s Pic­ture Books About Refugees.
Goodreads logoAnd, last but not least, Goodreads has a HUGE list of Pop­u­lar Refugee Books.
 
We would want some­one to help us if we were in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion, so let’s do the same for them and respond to refugees with sol­i­dar­i­ty, com­pas­sion, and action. Books can be a great place to start.
Refugees Welcome sign
Image avail­able as a stick­er or down­load­able PDF (click for info)

Launch party for Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries

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Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Please join me for the West Coast Launch Party for

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE:
HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES

Saturday, June 30th, 2 PM **

A trivia-style game-show challenge… with prizes!

Q&A, exclusive behind-the-scenes gossip, and outtakes!

Book swag!

Charitable giving!

Free snacks and drinks!

Books, books, and more books!

Brick & Mortar Books
7430 164th Avenue Northeast
Redmond, WA 98052

To RSVP, please visit the event invitation here. Thanks!

** Come ear­ly to enjoy the fab­u­lous Red­mond Sat­ur­day Mar­ket before the event!

And, if you can’t make the par­ty but would like to order a signed copy, please call Brick and Mor­tar Books at 425–869-0606.

Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! (now in paperback)

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Two Truths and a Lie cover

And I want to be a paper­back writer
Paper­back writer!
(cue music by the Beatles)

Two Truths and a Lie: It's Alive! cover
Now in paperback!

I’ve tech­ni­cal­ly already had one paper­back release, since Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing that Mat­ters came out in hard­cov­er, paper­back, and e‑book all at the same time. That does­n’t make it any less excit­ing that Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, which came out in hard­cov­er last year, is now avail­able in a paper­back version!
Even bet­ter is that the paper­back ver­sion is awe­some, IMHO. Some of the things I love most about the hard­cov­er of this book are the vivid col­ors of the pho­tographs and graph­ics and the high-qual­i­ty paper they are print­ed on, so I won­dered how the paper­back would mea­sure up to that high bar. I need­n’t have wor­ried, because the paper­back is every bit is beau­ti­ful and sturdy.
In fact, the only dif­fer­ence is that it’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er. And that is great news, because it means more kids will get a chance to own it! 🙂
Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover
Avail­able June 26, 2018!

You can pur­chase the brand-new paper­back ver­sion from your local book­store, or find infor­ma­tion about order­ing the new paper­back ver­sion here.
In case you missed it, there’s a short inter­view with Ammi-Joan and me over at the Cybils blog, fol­low­ing our win in the Mid­dle Grade Non-Fic­tion cat­e­go­ry. You can check that out here.
And, if you’re so inclined, you can now pre-order TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES, which will be avail­able on June 26, 2018. You can get all of that infor­ma­tion here.
Final­ly, just for fun, here’s our SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton play­ers, a.k.a. Band: Books, per­form­ing Pic­ture Book Writer (our spin­off ver­sion of the Bea­t­les’ song above), last May 10, 2017, fea­tur­ing Vikram Madan and Mike Cressy on gui­tar; Janet Lee Carey, Kather­ine Grace Bond, and Karen Lewis on vocals; Dana Sul­li­van on drums; Dori Hillestad But­ler on key­board; myself on bass (low­er right-hand cor­ner); and Dan Richards as pro­duc­er, stage man­ag­er, and road­ie. Many thanks to Vikram Madan for cap­tur­ing us on video!

Good news for Emmanuel’s Dream

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It is so hard for me to believe that I’m still get­ting good news about Emmanuel’s Dream more than three years after it was pub­lished! I thought I’d share some of the most excit­ing bits with you here:
LittleFreeLibrary Action Book Club logoFirst, you’ve heard of lit­tle free libraries, right? Have you heard about the Lit­tle Free Library orga­ni­za­tion? If not, def­i­nite­ly check them out, here. They are doing all kinds of great things, but per­haps my favorite is their Action Book Club™. In a new twist on the tra­di­tion­al book club, this part­ner­ship between Lit­tle Free Libraries and Read­ing Is Fun­da­men­tal (RIF) invites par­tic­i­pants to read books on time­ly top­ics, engage in live­ly dis­cus­sions, and take part in meaningful—and fun—group ser­vice projects to ben­e­fit their com­mu­ni­ties. How is that for com­bin­ing two of my favorite things: read­ing and social engage­ment!? Plus, Action Book Club mem­bers can share their expe­ri­ences online, which helps spread a rip­ple effect of pos­i­tive activ­i­ty across the coun­try and around the world. I love every­thing about this idea, so it was super excit­ing to learn that Lit­tle Free Library select­ed Emmanuel’s Dream for their cur­rent Action Book Club theme of Every­day Heroes, “which cel­e­brates acts of brav­ery, char­ac­ter, and kind­ness that trans­form our world in ways big and small.”
Illinois Monarch Award logoSec­ond, the Illi­nois School Library Media Asso­ci­a­tion (ISLMA) announced that Emmanuel’s Dream is includ­ed on their 2019 Monarch Award Mas­ter List. This means that stu­dents and their teach­ers in par­tic­i­pat­ing schools will be encour­aged to include Emmanuel’s Dream and the 19 oth­er titles on the mas­ter list in their read­ing or lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ences dur­ing the school year, and then stu­dents will vote for their favorite! The author and illus­tra­tor of the book receiv­ing the high­est num­ber of votes in the statewide bal­lot­ing will be declared the win­ners of the Monarch Award and will be invit­ed to attend the ISLMA con­fer­ence and par­tic­i­pate in pro­grams to fea­ture and hon­or him or her. Squee! I love the ones where stu­dents get to vote. Every­one wins!
El Sueno de Emmanuel coverLast, but not least, I’m thrilled that the Span­ish edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream is not only avail­able, but it’s avail­able for read­ers of Span­ish who live here in the U.S., too! A huge thanks to Men­sajero for mak­ing this edi­tion pos­si­ble and spread­ing Emmanuel’s inspir­ing story.
That’s all for now. Thanks so much for read­ing. =D
 

On fear, and how writing is like a guitar

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Fear is fun­ny. Not fun­ny, real­ly. Mad­den­ing, frus­trat­ing, debilitating.
Ortega acoustic electric mini bassAfter a busy month or so, I had­n’t had time to prac­tice my bass gui­tar at all. I want­ed to. I missed it. So I took it out of the case and sat it next to my chair so it would be easy to grab when­ev­er I had a few free min­utes. And from there it mocked me. I was afraid to pick it up. Afraid I’d for­got­ten every­thing. Afraid I would suck.
Writ­ing is like that, too. I think the writ­ers who advise oth­ers to “write every day” do so for this rea­son most of all. The longer we go with­out doing some­thing the more room there is for doubt and excus­es, so we go even longer with­out doing it. It’s a vicious cycle that can be dif­fi­cult to break out of.
Some­times, the miss­ing doing the thing becomes greater than the fear and over­comes it. Oth­er times, we force our­selves past the fear. We have been here before and can see it for what it is.
I final­ly picked up the gui­tar today. I can still play. In fact, I think I played bet­ter today than I have in months. It felt joy­ous, both the abil­i­ty to make music and the let­ting go of the fear.
Soon, my sched­ule will allow me to get back to writ­ing again, too. And I am not afraid. In fact, I’m look­ing for­ward to it.
What goals are you avoid­ing because of fear? Per­haps it’s time to begin.
Begin

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