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Laurie Ann Thompson

MY DOG IS THE BEST

#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

Happy holidays (and a gift idea)!

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Are you buy­ing any of my books to give as a gift this hol­i­day sea­son? If so, thank you!
I’d be thrilled to send you a signed book­plate and some book swag for you to include with your gift. Just send an email to laurie@lauriethompson.com with the details (which book, to whom it should be per­son­al­ized, and what mail­ing address you’d like it sent to), and I’ll pop them in the mail for you ASAP.
And, again, thank you! It’s like giv­ing a gift to me, too. =D
Be a Changemaker gift wrapped

My Dog Is the Best… in Japanese!

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A few months ago I announced that My Dog Is the Best would be trans­lat­ed and sold in Japan­ese. A few days ago, there was a pack­age on my doorstep. I opened it to find these:
My Dog Is the Best cover in Japanese
S U R P R I S E !  =D
This is the first for­eign edi­tion I’ve seen of any of my books, so it’s super excit­ing. And it was even bet­ter than expect­ed, since we cur­rent­ly have a Japan­ese stu­dent liv­ing with us! She had already read the book in Eng­lish, so it was fun to see her enjoy it in her native language.
She also rather sheep­ish­ly informed me that my bio, which I thought was rather clever in Eng­lish, did­n’t trans­late quite so well into Japan­ese. It orig­i­nal­ly said, “…many of her best friends have had four legs and fur,” but the Japan­ese ver­sion appar­ent­ly says some­thing along the lines of “many of her best friends have had four legs and were hairy.” She found it rather humor­ous that the Japan­ese ver­sion was­n’t clear­ly refer­ring to ani­mals, as the Eng­lish ver­sion was. Ah, the sub­tleties of lan­guage, and the impor­tance of word choice! 🙂
My Dog Is the Best-Japanese bio
 

Good news for MY DOG IS THE BEST!

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MY DOG IS THE BEST cover

MY DOG IS THE BEST cover
I’m tick­led to share some good news about MY DOG IS THE BEST with you today:

 
First, it was list­ed in the CCBC Choic­es 2016 by the Coop­er­a­tive Children’s Book Center!

 
Sec­ond, it was also award­ed a 2015 Blue Rib­bon from The Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Children’s Books (BCCB)!

 
My Dog Is the Best activity kit coverThird, I worked with Curi­ous City to devel­op a free sto­ry­time and canine craft kit for edu­ca­tors, librar­i­ans, and par­ents, and I think it turned out beau­ti­ful­ly. Just down­load and print, and you’ve got a ready-made activ­i­ty plan to go along with the book. Enjoy!

 
Final­ly, I can’t remem­ber if I men­tioned this or not, but now that the date is approach­ing, I’m get­ting more and more excit­ed… My Dog Is the Best will soon be pub­lished in Japan! It is expect­ed to release this sum­mer, and in an even small­er (and cuter!) trim size. I’ll keep you posted!

 

Book trailer video for My Dog Is the Best

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I LOVE this book trail­er for My Dog Is the Best! Not just because it’s adorable (it is), or because it’s my first book trail­er (yep), but because so many spe­cial peo­ple helped make it a reality.
First, check it out:

Isn’t that CUTE? Of course, huge thanks to Paul Schmid for pro­vid­ing the art. My sweet hus­band record­ed the audio (with my awe­some sis­ter-in-law’s help) of my dar­ling niece “read­ing” the book: She’s too young to read just yet, so she mem­o­rized the whole thing! And my tal­ent­ed friend Lelynn did the ani­ma­tions and edit­ing. Thanks so much, everyone!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! 🙂

Summer 2015 roundup

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The days are (final­ly) get­ting cool­er and damper here in the Pacif­ic North­west and most of the kids are back in school, so it seems like a good time to reflect on the summer.
I typ­i­cal­ly don’t get to do much writ­ing-relat­ed work over the sum­mer, since the kids are home from school and the sun is shin­ing, but this sum­mer was filled with fun and excit­ing author events!

2015-07-11 Andersons Bookshop kids books extravaganza 2First, I got to par­tic­i­pate in a huge author pan­el at Ander­son­’s Book­shop in Naperville, IL. The kids’ books extrav­a­gan­za on July 11th includ­ed some of my best friends in the indus­try, includ­ing Chris­tine Hayes, Ruth Bar­shaw, Lyn­da Hunt, Keyan Atte­ber­ry, Jen­nifer Cham­b­liss Bert­man, Tara Dair­man, Janet Fox, and Amy Finnegan. It was even more won­der­ful because I got to meet the very spe­cial some­one who wrote one of my all-time favorite reviews Emmanuel’s Dream, Kee­gan Knott, and it was her birth­day, too! I got a hug. It’s a day I won’t soon for­get, let me tell you. Thank you Ander­son­’s and Kee­gan for the won­der­ful mem­o­ries! =D

EMLA costume partyNext I head­ed to the Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency client retreat at The Abbey Resort at Lake Gene­va. I can’t even begin to explain what a pow­er­ful, amaz­ing this annu­al event is for me, and this year was no dif­fer­ent. We do lots of fun, sil­ly things like the cos­tume par­ty, but we also do a lot of learn­ing, net­work­ing, shar­ing, con­nect­ing, grow­ing, and more. I feel so blessed to be a part of this community!
2015-07-12 Mustard Museum2015-07-12 St LouisIMG_2675From there I con­tin­ued on down to St. Louis to sign books at ILA and con­duct a research trip. Our first stop was the Nation­al Mus­tard Muse­um.

What am I research­ing there, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see! St. Louis was beau­ti­ful, ILA was a lot of fun, and I even got to go to
Cyn­thia Levin­son’s book launch par­ty for Watch Out for Fly­ing Kids while I was there. Plus, the research trip was a huge suc­cess. I can’t wait to get back to work on that manuscript!

I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to appear at sev­er­al sum­mer camps, includ­ing one on being a change­mak­er and anoth­er on ear­ly lit­er­a­cy, which I loved, and I did inter­views on two dif­fer­ent live radio programs.

IMG_2956Last but cer­tain­ly not least, I also spoke at the Pacif­ic North­west Library Asso­ci­a­tion (PNLA) annu­al con­fer­ence in Port­land with two of my favorite non­fic­tion authors, Mary Cronk Far­rell and Eliz­a­beth Rusch, and I did my first sto­ry­time for My Dog Is the Best at Uni­ver­si­ty Book­store in Bellevue.
It was a busy, ful­fill­ing sum­mer, and now I’m look­ing for­ward to some qui­et writ­ing time!
 

MY DOG IS THE BEST news and #giveaways!

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MY DOG IS THE BEST-cover

MY DOG IS THE BEST-coverIt’s almost release day for MY DOG IS THE BEST, avail­able Tues­day, June 9th!
Here’s what the crit­ics have had to say so far:

“… the sim­plic­i­ty of both the words and the pic­tures cre­ates a charm­ing, tod­dler-sized ode to man’s best friend.” —Book­list
“This sim­ple, qui­et sto­ry con­veys the endur­ing bond between child and dog, with the added appeal of a joke that younger chil­dren just begin­ning to under­stand humor can enjoy.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Though ‘a boy and his dog’ may not be a ground­break­ing theme, it’s often a pop­u­lar one—and this gen­tle tale of friend­ship is no excep­tion.… While this is a famil­iar sto­ry, it’s a well-exe­cut­ed and charm­ing one.” —School Library Journal
“… sim­ple word­ing helps young chil­dren who are learn­ing to read.… I real­ly enjoyed this cute chil­dren’s book and enjoyed its depic­tion of man’s best friend.…or should we say ‘boy’s’ best friend!” —Curl­ing Up With A Good Book blog
“#Booka­day My Dog is the Best by @LaurieThompson & @PaulSchmidBooks. Made me think of http://t.co/mlzJYBYVm1″ … “In my opin­ion, it is a per­fect can­di­date for The Bak­er’s Dozen.”  — John Schu (@MrSchuReads) Feb­ru­ary 26, 2015

The launch par­ty is Fri­day, June 12th, at Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store in the Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict. More info here.
There’s a give­away hap­pen­ing on Goodreads:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

My Dog Is the Best by Laurie Ann Thompson

My Dog Is the Best

by Laurie Ann Thompson

Give­away ends June 16, 2015.
See the give­away details
at Goodreads. 

Enter to Win


Our adorable pup and boy pair are going out on a blog tour begin­ning Sat­ur­day, June 6th. Here’s where to find them (and me) in the next few weeks (note, many of these will have give­aways, too–more chances to win!):

6/6/2015 Book­ing Mama http://www.bookingmama.net/
6/8/2015 Jean Rei­dy http://jeanreidy.com
6/9/2015 Watch. Con­nect. Read. http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/
6/10/2015 5 Min­utes for Books http://books.5minutesformom.com
6/11/2015 KidLit Fren­zy http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/
6/12/2015 Unleash­ing Readers http://www.unleashingreaders.com/
6/16/2015 Anas­ta­sia Suen: Book­talk­ing #kidlit http://anastasiasuen.com/
6/19/2015 Kir­by’s Lane http://kirbyslane.com
7/1/2015 Library Lions http://LibraryLionsRoar.blogspot.com

 
And, last but not least, if you’d like buy a copy:
You may pre-order a signed copy from Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store.
Also avail­able on:

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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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


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.

2013: What a year!

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EMLA Client Retreat group photo

I haven’t post­ed here for way too long, but 2013 turned out to be quite a year. I did man­age to squeeze in a few posts over at Emu’s Debuts, so I thought I’d share them here as a sort of roundup (and to par­tial­ly explain where I’ve been since the last post)…
In July, I had the amaz­ing expe­ri­ence of attend­ing my sec­ond Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency client retreat, this time in Big Sky Mon­tana. Words can’t real­ly describe how won­der­ful these retreats are, but I post­ed a bit about it here.

EMLA Client Retreat group photo
The whole EMLA retreat gang (except me!)

Aside from that trip, I spent the sum­mer writ­ing, research­ing, writ­ing, inter­view­ing, writ­ing, revis­ing, writ­ing, revis­ing, revis­ing, and revis­ing to deliv­er the final man­u­script for BE A CHANGEMAKER. I wrote a bit about the process here.
A screen shot of the developmental edit
Tracked changes in the devel­op­men­tal edit stage

Despite the mad race to the fin­ish line, I feel real­ly good about how it all came togeth­er. And here’s a post about how it felt to get to THE END.
Done!
Then there was the dread­ed author pho­to, which actu­al­ly turned out to be sort of fun (and decent enough to share with the world, thank goodness!).

Laurie Thompson head shot

 
Oth­er news and high­lights from the year?

  • I got to see an ear­ly study for a scene from the pic­ture-book biog­ra­phy of Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah, illus­trat­ed by Sean Qualls.
  • The above book also FINALLY has a title, EMMANUEL’S DREAM!
  • I also got to see pre­lim­i­nary sketch­es for MY DOG IS THE BEST (sor­ry, I can’t share them here, but Paul Schmid’s illus­tra­tions are ADORABLE!).
  • I fin­ished anoth­er fic­tion pic­ture book man­u­script and it will soon be going out on sub­mis­sion (fin­gers crossed!).
  • I par­tic­i­pat­ed in and fin­ished PiBoId­Mo 2013.

Stay tuned for my next post on how I plan to tack­le 2014. 🙂

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