Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

EMMANUEL'S DREAM

First Book selects Emmanuel’s Dream for #StoriesForAll

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Emmanuel's Dream cover

FirstBook logoFirstBook.org is an orga­ni­za­tion that helps kids in need get access to new books of their very own. I’m a huge fan of what they do and have per­son­al­ly sup­port­ed their mis­sion for a long time, so it’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their mar­ket­place. It’s an even big­ger hon­or to have one of my books select­ed for their new diver­si­ty cam­paign, called Sto­ries for All. Accord­ing to their webpage,

First Book’s Sto­ries for All Project™ Arms Edu­ca­tors with Diverse, Inclu­sive Children’s Books to Fuel Learn­ing, Pro­mote Edu­ca­tion­al Equi­ty.

With Sup­port from Top Busi­ness Lead­ers, Non­prof­it Launch­es 60,000 New-to-Paper­back Books, as Part of its Mar­ket-Dri­ven Solu­tion to Make Diverse Sto­ries Afford­able and Rel­e­vant for Those Serv­ing Chil­dren in Need.

Emmanuel's Dream coverWhat that means is that teach­ers and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als who work with under­priv­i­leged chil­dren can now request a spe­cial edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream for just $3.30, which means more chil­dren will get a chance to read about Emmanuel’s sto­ry and hope­ful­ly be inspired to fol­low their own dreams!
Short­ly after the announce­ment, First­Book host­ed a Twit­ter chat about diver­si­ty in chil­dren’s books with fel­low #Sto­ries­ForAll author Jes­sixa Bagley and I. You can read the tran­script here.
Please help me cheer on First­Book, along with their spon­sors and part­ners, for rec­og­niz­ing the need for diverse books for kids and their ongo­ing com­mit­ment to get­ting books into the hands of the chil­dren who need them most. And, if you wish to make a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion, you can do so here. Thanks!

The Emmanuel’s Dream blog tour wrap-up

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Emmanuel's Dream cover

Emmanuel's Dream cover
This is some­thing I’ve been mean­ing to do for a very long time now, but just nev­er got around to doing. Bet­ter late than nev­er, right? Here’s a roundup of all the fab­u­lous blogs that fea­tured Emmanuel’s Dream a few months (gulp) ago for the blog tour. If you want to read reviews of the book, guest posts from me, or inter­views with me about the book, look no fur­ther! Here they are gath­ered all in one place to make things easy for you.

Mon, Jan 12 Great Kid Books Review and interview
Tues, Jan 13 5 Min­utes for Books Review
Wed, Jan 14 Unleash­ing Readers Review, teach­ers’ tools, and interview
Thurs, Jan 15 Sharpread Inter­view
Fri, Jan 16 Crack­ing the Cover Inter­view
Sat, Jan 17 Book­ing Mama Review
Mon, Jan 19 Once Upon a Story Review and interview
Tues, Jan 20 Pros­e­and­kahn Review
Wed, Jan 21 Geo Librar­i­an Review and interview
Thurs, Jan 22 Non­fic­tion Detectives Review
Fri, Jan 23 The Fourth Musketeer Review
Fri, Jan 23 Kir­by’s Lane Guest post, Friend Friday
Mon, Jan 26 NC Teacher Stuff Review
Tues, Jan 27 Teach Men­tor Texts Review and writ­ing prompt

Many thanks to these fan­tas­tic blog­gers for their ded­i­ca­tion to pro­mot­ing great books for kids! I hope you’ll check them out for their oth­er reviews and posts, too.

Announcing the book giveaway winners!

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Be a Changemaker cover

A cou­ple of weeks ago I announced give­aways here and on Goodreads for both Be a Change­mak­er and Emmanuel’s Dream. We have winners!
From my list of newslet­ter sub­scribers, cho­sen by Random.org, the win­ners are…
Be a Changemaker coverJim McGin­ley wins a signed copy of Be a Change­mak­er! I swear it was com­plete­ly ran­dom, but this is just so per­fect. Jim was one of the very first peo­ple to help and encour­age me on my quest to write this book, and his ear­ly sup­port meant a lot to me. He’s even men­tioned in the acknowl­edge­ments. Some­times fate is hard to deny, you know?
Emmanuel's Dream coverThe win­ner of a signed copy of Emmanuel’s Dream is Lind­say Fouts! This seems like a great fit, too, since Lind­say is both a pic­ture book writer and the moth­er of a young son. I hope they enjoy the book.
And on Goodreads, the win­ners were far flung: Adage from Roma­nia won Be a Change­mak­er, and Jessy from India won Emmanuel’s Dream. Yes, it’ll cost me a lit­tle extra in postage, but it’s excit­ing to know that my books will be trav­el­ing around the world!
Final­ly, in case any­one is curi­ous, some give­away stats from Goodreads…

  • 1004 peo­ple request­ed Emmanuel’s Dream and 464 added it to their To-Read shelf, and
  • 1441 peo­ple request­ed Be a Change­mak­er and 610 added it to their To-Read shelf.

 
 
 

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

* indi­cates required



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

EMMANUEL’S DREAM is available for pre-order!

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EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover

EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover
 
My first pic­ture book, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, will be pub­lished in Jan­u­ary, but it’s avail­able for pre-order now!
Here’s the descrip­tion from the pub­lish­er’s web page:

Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah’s inspir­ing true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel’s Gift, nar­rat­ed by Oprah Winfrey—is noth­ing short of remarkable.
Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dis­missed by most people—but not by his moth­er, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soc­cer, left home at age thir­teen to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly, and even­tu­al­ly, became a cyclist. He rode an aston­ish­ing four hun­dred miles across Ghana in 2001, spread­ing his pow­er­ful mes­sage: dis­abil­i­ty is not inabil­i­ty. Today, Emmanuel con­tin­ues to work on behalf of the disabled.
Thomp­son’s lyri­cal prose and Quall­s’s bold col­lage illus­tra­tions offer a pow­er­ful cel­e­bra­tion of tri­umph­ing over adversity.

To order your copy from an inde­pen­dent book­seller, vis­it Secret Gar­den Book­shop (if you add your per­son­al­iza­tion request in the com­ments sec­tion, I’ll sign it for you!) or check out IndieBound for a local book­store near you. Of course, you can also find it on Amazon.com or BN.com.
And, of course, you can always add it to your Goodreads shelf:

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah


Emmanuel on US National Amputee Soccer Team

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Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, the sub­ject of my upcom­ing pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, is an ath­lete who was born in Ghana, West Africa, with a deformed leg. As a young man, he want­ed to change the way dis­abled peo­ple were treat­ed in Ghana, so he rode a bicy­cle near­ly 400 miles all around his coun­try to prove that being dis­abled does­n’t mean being unable. Since then, he has con­tin­ued to be an advo­cate for the rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and has launched his own foun­da­tion, with plans to build a school in Ghana for abled and dis­abled chil­dren alike. He now spends most of his time based in San Diego, CA, trav­el­ing the Unit­ed States as a moti­va­tion­al speak­er and rais­ing funds for his charity.
This spring, the Unit­ed States Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team invit­ed Emmanuel to play for them. He just returned to San Diego from a train­ing ses­sion in Mary­land, and he’ll join the team when they com­pete in the 10th Amputee World Cup in Mex­i­co in late November.
Good luck, Emmanuel, and to the rest of the play­ers on the US Nation­al Amputee Soc­cer Team!
Read more about Emmanuel and his World Cup Soc­cer expe­ri­ence here, includ­ing some great photos.

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