Announcing the Emmanuel’s Dream audiobook!

Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker

Emmanuels Dream cover with sticker
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 my nose in a book. 😂  So trust me when I say that hav­ing one of my books be made into an audio­book makes me squeal for joy and bust out my hap­py dance!
The sec­ond rea­son, how­ev­er, is far more impor­tant. Emmanuel’s Dream was award­ed the 2016 Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion’s Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award for embody­ing “an artis­tic expres­sion of the dis­abil­i­ty expe­ri­ence for child and ado­les­cent audi­ences.” One of the things that moved me most about win­ning the award was learn­ing that it meant that a braille edi­tion of Emmanuel’s Dream would be released. That still left some read­ers out, sad­ly, and I’ve been dream­ing of an audio­book ever since. Hav­ing an Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book edi­tion means more access for more peo­ple. It means those with vision impair­ments can hear Emmanuel’s inspir­ing sto­ry of social action. It means emerg­ing read­ers or read­ers with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties such as dyslex­ia can lis­ten to Emmanuel’s exam­ple of per­se­ver­ance in the face of chal­lenges. It means all chil­dren every­where will have anoth­er way to appre­ci­ate Emmanuel’s mes­sage of accept­ing every­one’s diverse gifts.
So, it is with great plea­sure that I can now say the Emmanuel’s Dream audio­book is sched­uled to be released on Jan­u­ary 26, 2021, and you even can pre­order it RIGHT NOW!
I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the team at Lis­ten­ing Library, and I’ll be sure to share fur­ther details (like who will be nar­rat­ing!) as soon as I get them.
Penguin Random House Audio header

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 of yum­mies, and look at the love­ly decorations:

stage decorations
The edge of the stage, with the book cov­ers and oth­er images inspired by the stories.

cup and saucer with tiny bicycle and horse
Bicy­cles for Emmanuel’s Dream, hors­es for The War that Saved My Life.

It was fun hear­ing the oth­er speak­ers and get­ting to chat with the librar­i­ans dur­ing the book sign­ing. And it all came with an hon­est-to-good­ness medal!

front of medal
The front of the medal.

back of medal
The back of the medal.

After the cer­e­mo­ny, I had some time to walk around and explore the city. The weath­er was per­fect, and Pasade­na is lovely.

Quote on electrical box
I loved the quotes paint­ed onto the elec­tri­cal boxes!

I stum­bled upon a street fair in hon­or of Day of the Dead. There were many tal­ent­ed artists sell­ing their wares, ven­dors, music, danc­ing, a pup­pet show, and chalk art! There were a lot of peo­ple out and about enjoy­ing the fes­tive atmosphere.
chalk artist at work
A chalk artist at work dur­ing the street fair.

A beard­ed drag­on named Robert, enjoy­ing the street fair with his pet boy.

I, of course, had to vis­it the local inde­pen­dent book­store, Vroman’s!

bookstore shelves
A nice dis­play at Vroman’s

The nice young women work­ing there rec­om­mend­ed Tre­jo’s Can­ti­na for din­ner, and it was so delicious!
Mexican rice bowl
Deli­cious din­ner at Tre­jo’s Cantina!

The Vro­man’s gals also told me not to miss the new ice cream shop in town, Wan­der­lust, which fea­tures fla­vors based on exot­ic trav­el des­ti­na­tions. They had me at ice cream! It was well worth the walk. I chose hon­ey laven­der, and it was divine.
So many inter­est­ing flavors!

As you can see, it was an amaz­ing trip. Thank you so much, Cal­i­for­nia young readers! 🙂

Good news for Emmanuel’s Dream

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
 

More good news from Brooks Global and Emmanuel’s Dream

Sev­er­al weeks ago I wrote about a school in North Car­oli­na, Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies, which had select­ed Emmanuel’s Dream as their all-school read and then had Emmanuel come vis­it them in per­son! (If you haven’t seen it yet, please go check out the video. It’s pret­ty amazing!)
Recent­ly, I came across this addi­tion­al piece of the sto­ry, which I had­n’t been aware of… In addi­tion to the shared read­ing expe­ri­ence and the inspi­ra­tional vis­it from Emmanuel, the Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies school com­mu­ni­ty took things one step fur­ther by orga­niz­ing a char­i­ty bike dri­ve and were able to col­lect 210 donat­ed bicy­cles! The bikes will be shipped to Ghana, refur­bished by a repair shop oper­at­ed by peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and then put up for sale there.
What an inspir­ing, reward­ing event for every­one involved. Way to go, Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies! Click here to read the full arti­cle, and be sure to scroll through the pic­ture slideshow!

H. Scott Hoffmann/Greensboro News & Record

Emmanuel’s Dream as an all-school read

Last year, Emmanuel’s Dream made its way to Cum­ber­land Road Ele­men­tary in Fish­ers, Indi­ana, as their all-school read, a book select­ed to be incor­po­rat­ed across the cur­ricu­lum in all grade lev­els. The school describes itself as “a school com­mit­ted to inclu­siv­i­ty and glob­al con­nect­ed­ness,” and they thought Emmanuel’s true sto­ry would be a good fit. Stu­dents and teach­ers read the book. I did vir­tu­al vis­its via Skype to answer the stu­dents’ ques­tions and hope­ful­ly deep­en the expe­ri­ence for them. And then every­thing came togeth­er in a serendip­i­tous but impact­ful event for the entire school com­mu­ni­ty! Here’s a pho­to from their event:

Emmanuel in front of a sign the children made
Yes, Emmanuel him­self showed up, mid-way through his ride across the U.S.!

For the whole arti­cle, click here.
More recent­ly, Brooks Glob­al Stud­ies in North Car­oli­na also chose Emmanuel’s Dream as their all-school read! Their mis­sion is to have their stud­ies lead stu­dents to “under­stand how their actions as indi­vid­u­als impact the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty of their class­room and the school, just as the actions of a sin­gle coun­try affects the world.” Again, stu­dents and teach­ers read the book, and I called in via Skype to answer ques­tions from stu­dents. And once again, stu­dents were in for an excit­ing sur­prise, when Emmanuel him­self arrived, this time all the way from Ghana! It was a spe­cial treat for me, too, since I had a chance to talk to him dur­ing one of the Skype sessions.
Here’s a video they made of the inspir­ing event:
I love see­ing how Emmanuel is con­nect­ing with kids and inspir­ing them to fol­low their dreams! Don’t you?

More good news for Emmanuel’s Dream!

Great news: Emmanuel’s Dream has been select­ed to the 2017 IBBY Out­stand­ing Books for Young Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties!
2017 IBBY Selection catalog cover
Every two years, the Inter­na­tion­al Board on Books for Young Peo­ple (IBBY) choos­es out­stand­ing books for and about chil­dren and young peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. This bien­ni­al selec­tion draws atten­tion to books pub­lished around the world, in an exten­sive vari­ety of lan­guages and for­mats, that address spe­cial needs and sit­u­a­tions and which encour­age inclu­sion at every lev­el. Books select­ed as 2017 out­stand­ing titles are fea­tured in a print cat­a­logue that will be launched at this year’s Bologna Chil­dren’s Book Fair in Italy on Mon­day, April 3rd. Out­stand­ing titles become part of The IBBY Col­lec­tion of Books for Young Peo­ple with Dis­abil­i­ties, a one-of-a-kind resource. Con­sist­ing of 4,000 mul­ti­lin­gual books, the IBBY col­lec­tion is locat­ed at North York Cen­tral Library in Cana­da, part of the Toron­to Pub­lic Library.
Thanks, IBBY!!

Celebrate Inclusive Schools Week!


Schools across the coun­try are observ­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week this week. Accord­ing to the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work:

Inclu­sive Schools Week is an annu­al event spon­sored by the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work (ISN) and Stet­son & Asso­ciates, Inc., which is held each year dur­ing the first full week in Decem­ber. Since its incep­tion in 2001, Inclu­sive Schools Week has cel­e­brat­ed the progress that schools have made in pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive and qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion to an increas­ing­ly diverse stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, includ­ing stu­dents who are mar­gin­al­ized due to dis­abil­i­ty, gen­der, socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus, cul­tur­al her­itage, lan­guage pref­er­ence and oth­er fac­tors. The Week also pro­vides an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty for edu­ca­tors, stu­dents and par­ents to dis­cuss what else needs to be done in order to ensure that their schools con­tin­ue to improve their abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly edu­cate all children.
This year, the Inclu­sive Schools Week’s theme focus­es on the con­cept of being a hero. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly fit­ting because the def­i­n­i­tion of a hero, a per­son not­ed for coura­geous acts of nobil­i­ty of char­ac­ter, res­onates with all of the stu­dents, par­ents, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who take coura­geous steps for­ward each day to pro­mote accep­tance for all. The path toward more inclu­sive edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices has been chal­leng­ing, yet reward­ing. This year, we will focus on the steps along this jour­ney and con­sid­er the courage it requires.

Now that’s a mis­sion I can get behind, and I think my book Emmanuel’s Dream, about one of my per­son­al heroes, fits this theme per­fect­ly! Emmanuel is not only a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty, but he’s ded­i­cat­ed his life to cre­at­ing an inclu­sive school for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and with­out and his home coun­try of Ghana.
Inclu­sive Schools Net­work has more great ideas and resources for cel­e­brat­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week here.
And Savan­na Flakes has some oth­er great sug­ges­tions for all ages here on Multi­B­riefs: Exclusive.
 

Emmanuel’s Dream a WA State Book Award Finalist!

Washington State Book Awards logoThe Wash­ing­ton Cen­ter for the Book announced the Wash­ing­ton State Book Award final­ists for 2016, and I’m hon­ored to say that Emmanuel’s Dream is among the three final­ists for the Scan­di­uzzi Chil­dren’s Book Award in the Pic­ture Book category!
The Wash­ing­ton Cen­ter for the Book at The Seat­tle Pub­lic Library announces the Wash­ing­ton State Book Awards final­ists in eight cat­e­gories for out­stand­ing books pub­lished by Wash­ing­ton authors in the pre­vi­ous year. This is the 50th year of the pro­gram, for­mer­ly called the Gov­er­nor’s Writ­ers Awards. The book awards are giv­en based on the strength of the pub­li­ca­tions’ lit­er­ary mer­it, their last­ing impor­tance, and their over­all qual­i­ty to an author who was born in Wash­ing­ton state or is a cur­rent res­i­dent and has main­tained res­i­dence here for at least three years.
Win­ners will be announced at the awards cel­e­bra­tion, held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 8, at the Cen­tral Library. The awards pro­gram will fea­ture emcee Frances McCue, an award-win­ning poet and arts admin­is­tra­tor who received the Wash­ing­ton State Book Award for poet­ry in 2011 for “The Bled.” The pro­gram also fea­tures brief read­ings from 2016 win­ning titles. A recep­tion and book sign­ing will fol­low in the Liv­ing Room on Lev­el 3 of the Cen­tral Library. The awards and cel­e­bra­tion are spon­sored by The Seat­tle Pub­lic Library Foundation.
Con­grat­u­la­tions to all of the final­ists, espe­cial­ly to friends Deb­o­rah Under­wood, Martha Brock­en­brough, Kel­ly Jones, and Jes­sixa Bagley!

Wonderful news for Emmanuel’s Dream!

There’s been a bunch of excit­ing news regard­ing Emmanuel’s Dream late­ly, and I want­ed to share it all with you…

First, it was recent­ly select­ed as a Notable Book in the Children’s Africana Book Awards! One of my all-time favorite pic­ture books—One Plas­tic Bag by Miran­da Paul—was sim­i­lar­ly rec­og­nized, which makes this hon­or even more special.

 
Emmanuel’s Dream was also list­ed in the CCBC Choic­es 2016 by the Coop­er­a­tive Children’s Book Cen­ter and in the Bank Street Col­lege of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year for ages 5–9!

It was a final­ist for the 2015 CYBILS (Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­gers’ Lit­er­ary) Awards in the Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fic­tion cat­e­go­ry. I’ve helped judge this cat­e­go­ry sev­er­al times, but obvi­ous­ly had to bow out this year! Since I know first­hand what a thor­ough, care­ful job the judges do to select the final­ists, it was tru­ly a thrill to have my book rec­og­nized for this award.

 
Emmanuel’s Dream has start­ed show­ing up on some state lists around the coun­try, too, which means even more kids will be read­ing it. That’s super excit­ing! Some of the state hon­ors I’m aware of so far include:

 
Last, but cer­tain­ly not least, I’ve learned that Emmanuel’s Dream will be pub­lished in Kore­an! One thing I always dreamed of was hav­ing my books pub­lished in anoth­er coun­try, and now I’ve got two (a Japan­ese ver­sion of My Dog Is the Best should be com­ing soon, too).

An ALA Schneider Family Award for Emmanuel’s Dream

Schneider Award
This is old news at this point, but I’ve been so busy that I’m just now FINALLY get­ting around to post­ing it here. So, just in case you’ve been too busy to keep up with the news in the chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture indus­try, Emmanuel’s Dream has won the Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award from the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion! The pur­pose of this spe­cial award is to “hon­or an author or illus­tra­tor for the artis­tic expres­sion of the dis­abil­i­ty expe­ri­ence for child and ado­les­cent audi­ences,” so I’m extreme­ly hon­ored that the com­mit­tee select­ed Emmanuel’s Dream.
Emmanuels Dream cover with stickerThis and oth­er Youth Media Awards were announced on Jan­u­ary 11, 2016, dur­ing the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion (ALA) Mid­win­ter Meet­ing & Exhibits in Boston and via live stream. Here in the Pacif­ic North­west, we have to get up at 5am to catch them, but it was def­i­nite­ly worth it! The award itself will be pre­sent­ed in Orlan­do dur­ing the ALA Annu­al Con­fer­ence & Exhi­bi­tion in June, and both Sean and I are both expect­ing to be able to attend.
Recip­i­ents are select­ed in three cat­e­gories: birth through grade school (age 0–8), mid­dle grade (age 9–13) and teens (age 14–18). Emmanuel’s Dream won the award for young chil­dren, which was the very first award to be announced in the entire pro­gram. Next up was Fish in a Tree, which won a mid­dle-grade award. This only added to my excite­ment, as it was writ­ten by my friend and agency sis­ter Lyn­da Mul­laly Hunt!
Schneider Award flowersThank you to all of the mem­bers of the 2016 Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Book Award com­mit­tee, includ­ing Alyson Beech­er (com­mit­tee chair), Nan­cy L. Bau­mann, Bet­sy Fras­er, Beth McGuire, Elsworth Rock­e­feller, Joan­na Tam­plin, Car­o­line Ward, and Jill Gar­cia! I’m espe­cial­ly grate­ful to Kather­ine Schnei­der and the Schnei­der fam­i­ly for spon­sor­ing this impor­tant award. It is such a huge hon­or to receive it, and I hope it will help the book find its way into the hands of more kids who need to hear its mes­sage. Thank you also to my fan­tas­tic agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, for believ­ing in this sto­ry; to Sean Qualls, for illus­trat­ing it so beau­ti­ful­ly; and to every­one at Schwartz & Wade/Random House for all of their hard work and ded­i­ca­tion, which made it into the book it is today. And look, they even sent me some gor­geous flow­ers to celebrate!
Notables SealOn the heels of the Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Award, it was also announced that Emmanuel’s Dream was includ­ed on the ALA ALSC’s Notable Chil­dren’s Books list. Each year a com­mit­tee of the Asso­ci­a­tion for Library Ser­vice to Chil­dren (ALSC) iden­ti­fies the best of the best in chil­dren’s books. Accord­ing to the Nota­bles Cri­te­ria, “notable” is defined as: Wor­thy of note or notice, impor­tant, dis­tin­guished, out­stand­ing. As applied to chil­dren’s books, notable should be thought to include books of espe­cial­ly com­mend­able qual­i­ty, books that exhib­it ven­ture­some cre­ativ­i­ty, and books of fic­tion, infor­ma­tion, poet­ry and pic­tures for all age lev­els (birth through age 14) that reflect and encour­age chil­dren’s inter­ests in exem­plary ways. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to see Emmanuel’s Dream on that list of amaz­ing books! Thank you, ALSC!
 

NEWSLETTER
SIGN-UP