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Who Gives a Poop cover

Review: Who Gives a Poop?

Who Gives a Poop? Sur­pris­ing Sci­ence from One End to the Oth­er By: Heather L. Mont­gomery, Illus­tra­tor: Iris Got­tlieb Blooms­bury Chil­dren’s Books/October 13, 2020 Ages 10–14, 192 pages Here’s what the pub­lish­er says: This unique­ly craft­ed nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion invites read­ers to fol­low the author into sci­ence labs, forests, hos­pi­tals, and land­fills, as the author asks: Who uses poo? Poop is dis­gust­ing, but it’s also packed with

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Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker

Announcing the Emmanuel’s Dream audiobook!

I have some great news to share today! I’m thrilled to announce that Lis­ten­ing Library at Pen­guin Ran­dom House Audio will be pro­duc­ing an Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book edi­tion!! This is super excit­ing to me for two rea­sons: First, I love lis­ten­ing to audio­books! I lis­ten when I’m walk­ing the dog, dri­ving, doing house­work, basi­cal­ly any­time it isn’t prac­ti­cal to have

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#AtHome learning using my books

The inspir­ing image above is a spread from my upcom­ing pic­ture book, ELIZABETH WARREN’S BIG, BOLD PLANS, illus­trat­ed by the amaz­ing Susan­na Chap­man and releas­ing on May 5 (hooray!). These days, it often feels hard to con­ceive of big, bold plans. I’ll admit, some days just get­ting out of my paja­mas feels like a vic­to­ry. And for those of those

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girl looking out window at virus

Empower kids and teens during COVID-19

Why empow­er kids and teens dur­ing COVID-19? They need it! Tak­ing action is one impor­tant way to make a prob­lem seem more man­age­able and less fright­en­ing, so get­ting young peo­ple involved can actu­al­ly help them cope with the sit­u­a­tion we are all fac­ing. Giv­ing them a pur­pose gives them some­thing else to focus on besides what they’ve lost or what they’re

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Gleams When Wet cover

Thoughts on Writing Poetry

I’m strug­gling to write a poet­ic pic­ture book. To fill me with the metaphor, imagery, rhythm and meter that I’m striv­ing for, I’ve been read­ing oth­er books of poet­ry. Two inter­est­ing things hap­pened dur­ing today’s read­ings… First, I was read­ing Gleams When Wet by Debra Spencer. I had picked it up at Half Price Books on a whim, since I’m

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Growing Up Gorilla cover

Blog Tour: Growing Up Gorilla by Clare Hodgson Meeker

Today I’m thrilled to be a part of the blog tour for Clare Hodg­son Meeker’s new book, Grow­ing Up Goril­la! GROWING UP GORILLA by Clare Hodg­son Meek­er Mill­brook Press/September 3, 2019 Grades 3–6, 48 pages Here’s what the pub­lish­er says about Grow­ing Up Goril­la: This heart­warm­ing true sto­ry chron­i­cles what hap­pened after a moth­er goril­la gave birth for the first time and

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Emmanuel’s Dream wins CA Young Reader Medal!

A few weeks ago I was hon­ored to trav­el to Pasade­na, CA, to the Cal­i­for­nia Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence to receive the Cal­i­for­nia Young Read­er Medal for Emmanuel’s Dream. This is a very spe­cial award because the win­ning book in each cat­e­go­ry is cho­sen by the kids them­selves. First, the award tea itself. There were teas and sand­wich­es and all kinds

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Animated GIF of TTL Forces of Nature cover

Happy book birthday to Forces of Nature!

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: FORCES OF NATURE, the third book in the series, is final­ly here! So, what’s this one about? Here’s an overview: Crazy-but-true sto­ries make this acclaimed non­fic­tion series per­fect for fans of curiosi­ties and wonders—and any­one look­ing to explore ways to sep­a­rate fact from fic­tion. Did you know stud­ies have shown that too many fid­get spinners

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What I’ve Been Up To This Month

The month isn’t even over yet, but so much has been packed into the last few weeks it feels more like two months already! That’s not exact­ly an excuse for neglect­ing the blog, but, you know, life hap­pens. Any­way… Beach­side Non­fic­tion Work­shop I start­ed out the month at the Beach­side Non­fic­tion Work­shop with Can­dace Flem­ing & Jen­nifer Swan­son. It was amazing!

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Two Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries cover

Happy National Trivia Day!

It may itself be a lit­­tle-known fact, but Jan­u­ary 4th is Nation­al Triv­ia Day! To cel­e­brate, I thought I’d post some triv­ia tid­bits from Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies. Remem­ber, ONE of the claims in each set of three below fol­low­ing is false. Can you fig­ure out which one in each trio is the fake triv­i­um? (Did

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