Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

Books

New Books–Meet Your World!

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Meet Your World series

banner image with book covers and series logoWrit­ten by Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son, illus­trat­ed by Jay Fleck
Dial Books, April 2023

I’m thrilled to announce the release of my two newest books, YOU ARE A HONEY BEE! and YOU ARE A RACCOON!, the first two books in an adorable, STEM nonfiction picture book series that encourages very young readers to learn—through gentle interactivity and play—about the animals who share their world.

This play­ful and infor­ma­tive series, avail­able in hard­cov­er, ebook, and audio­book edi­tions, invites you to take a clos­er look at the amaz­ing ani­mals that live right along­side you in rur­al, sub­ur­ban, and urban land­scapes across North Amer­i­ca. In each book, words and art inspire you to act out ani­mal actions that are not so dif­fer­ent from your own habits. And robust back­mat­ter offers even more facts and fun. From the ani­mals’ fam­i­lies and foods to their envi­ron­ments and behav­iors, let’s meet your world!

PRAISE FOR MEET YOUR WORLD:

“A very use­ful work for envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence and ani­mal stud­ies in the class­room and for indi­vid­ual read­ing. The hard­work­ing life of a hon­ey bee is shown through a live­ly text and col­or­ful illus­tra­tions which offer sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion.” – School Library Journal

“Thomp­son has craft­ed a tru­ly won­der­ful book that not only pulls read­ers in with a cute tale about ani­mals but also incor­po­rates activ­i­ties that mim­ic the lives of raccoons—all while being edu­ca­tion­al! All libraries will want to include this in their children’s col­lec­tions.” – School Library Journal

“Nat­u­ral­is­tic and charm­ing.” – Kirkus Reviews

You Are a Honey Bee! cover imageSwish, swoosh, fly! You might have heard the words “busy as a bee,” but what do bees actu­al­ly do each day? Did you know bees clean their rooms, help feed baby bees, and build the hive they live in? From birth to first flight and beyond, dis­cov­er all that goes into being a bee in this charm­ing pic­ture book, the first in the Meet Your World series.

interior spread from HONEY BEE

You Are a Raccoon! cover imageCrawl, cling climb! You may have seen a rac­coon scur­ry up a tree or across the road just before dark. Did you know that rac­coons stay up at night play­ing, hunt­ing, and eat­ing when you go to sleep? From birth to first stripes and beyond, dis­cov­er all that goes into being a rac­coon in this charm­ing pic­ture book, the sec­ond in the Meet Your World series.

Take a closer look at the animals that live right alongside you!

#AtHome learning using my books

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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 par­ent­ing or teach­ing young­sters and attempt­ing #AtH­ome learn­ing for the first time? Hats off to you!
To try to help you with your big, bold plans–or even the just-get­ting-through-today plans–I’ve been work­ing to cre­ate and assem­ble what­ev­er mate­ri­als I can that might be of assis­tance. I’ll con­tin­ue to add to this list as I get more requests (feel free to reach out if there’s some­thing spe­cif­ic you’d like!), ideas, and time. Hope­ful­ly, you can find access to the books via an online read-aloud, ebook down­load, inde­pen­dent book­store, or your own book­shelves. I hope these resources are help­ful for your #AtH­ome learn­ing efforts!

Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker
EMMANUEL’S DREAM: THE TRUE STORY OF EMMANUEL OFOSU YEBOAH

Two Truths and a Lie coverTwo Truths and a Lie: Histories and Mysteries coverTTL3 Forces of Nature coverThe TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE series

Be a Changemaker coverBE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS

MY DOG IS THE BEST-coverMY DOG IS THE BEST

Again, my goals here are to be as help­ful as pos­si­ble for YOU to con­tin­ue lead­ing #AtH­ome learn­ing, so please email me if there is any­thing spe­cif­ic I might be able to do, includ­ing ways to con­nect with your stu­dents. We’re all in this togeth­er, even while we’re apart. So, until we meet again, stay safe, #Stay­Home… and stay sane. xoxo

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 more awards for Be a Changemaker!

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Be a Changemaker cover

Be a Changemaker cover
Be a Change­mak­er was recent­ly award­ed two more pres­ti­gious awards:
Moonbeam AwardFirst, it was rec­og­nized last month with a Moon­beam Award! These awards were cre­at­ed “to bring increased recog­ni­tion to exem­plary children’s books and their cre­ators, and to sup­port child­hood lit­er­a­cy and life-long read­ing.”  You can see the full list of win­ners here. Be a Change­mak­er was select­ed as a Gold Award win­ner in the Mind-Body-Spir­it/­Self-Esteem cat­e­go­ry. They even sent a gor­geous (and seri­ous­ly heavy) medal to wear around my neck!

Burgess Award seal
And, just today I found out it has also been award­ed a 2015 Gelett Burgess Award, too! The Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award “high­lights excel­lence in fam­i­ly-friend­ly books cov­er­ing the broad expanse of a child’s exis­tence, help­ing them grow social­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, eth­i­cal­ly, intel­lec­tu­al­ly, and phys­i­cal­ly.” Be a Change­mak­er was select­ed as the win­ner in the Lifestyle cat­e­go­ry for “Help­ing Oth­ers & Phil­an­thropy.” Look how pretty!
Burgess Award Be a Changemaker display

Be a Changemaker wins COVR Book of the Year!

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BaC at COVR awards-DSC_5012-2Each year the Coali­tion of Vision­ary Resources gives Vision­ary Awards to win­ners select­ed from the best prod­ucts in the Mind/Body/Spirit mar­ket­place. The 18th Annu­al Vision­ary Awards were announced at the INATS Awards Ban­quet on June 27, 2015.BaC at COVR awards-DSC_4627
I’m beyond thrilled to share that Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing that Mat­ters was select­ed not only as the Best Chil­dren’s and Teen’s Book, but it was also named COV­R’s Book of the Year!

BaC COVR BotY

 

Whit­ney Dif­f­endor­fer, Mar­ket­ing Direc­tor at Beyond Words, with the award

Radio Interview: Brooke Taylor’s A Special Connection

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I recent­ly had the hon­or of being inter­viewed by Brooke Tay­lor on her inspir­ing radio show, A Spe­cial Con­nec­tion on WHKW AM1220 in Cleve­land, Ohio. Brooke just hap­pened to have stum­bled across one of my books at her local pub­lic library and was moved by it, so she reached out to me to talk about it.
The whole show is fan­tas­tic, but if you’re in a rush, we start dis­cussing Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Sto­ry of Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah at about the 31:58 mark, and Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing that Mat­ters at about 45:37.
I hope you’ll enjoy listening!
https://soundcloud.com/living-the-word/a‑special-connection-with-brooke-taylor-july-25th-2015
What fun! Huge thanks to both Brooke and her pro­duc­er, Brett Crowe, for mak­ing it such a pleasure.
I’ve got a cou­ple more radio inter­views in the works as well, so please stay tuned for more audio in the com­ing weeks!

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.

On overnight success (Surprise! It’s a lot like failure.)

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I post­ed over on the Emu’s Debuts blog yes­ter­day about what makes an “overnight suc­cess.” If you missed it, here’s a lit­tle excerpt:

Both of last week’s posts here were about fail­ure, or at least the con­stant per­ceived threat of fail­ure that so often makes it hard for us to move for­ward. I’m going to con­tin­ue the theme, but on a slight­ly dif­fer­ent note. Our own Emu Empress, Erin MUrphy, once said some­thing along the lines of, “For every suc­cess, there is a wait­ing peri­od that feels like fail­ure.” And in a post on this very blog almost three years ago, she fol­lowed that up with, “But it’s NOT! It’s just waiting!”
Roosevelt quote about failure and successWhen she wrote that post back in 2011, I’d only been with the agency for a few months. One year from now, I’ll have three books pub­lished. That doesn’t seem like very much wait­ing, espe­cial­ly to those famil­iar with the pace of the pub­lish­ing indus­try. Many of my writer friends have walked up to me and said some­thing to the effect of, “Wow, you’re on FIRE!” Some say things like, “I guess you’ve been busy late­ly!” Oth­ers ask, “So, what’s your secret?” as if I’m hold­ing out on them. A few say, “Boy, did you get lucky!” nev­er think­ing that some authors might be a lit­tle bit offend­ed by that. (I nev­er am: Yes, indeed, I have got­ten very, very lucky!)
So, in the inter­ests of dis­pelling myths and keep­ing things real, I thought it might be help­ful to break down my “overnight success:”

You can read the rest of that post here.

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