Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

good news

June 2023 news

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You Are a Honey Bee! headband craft

Get your free activity kit!

There is now an activ­i­ty kit/curriculum guide for the first two books in the Meet Your World series, YOU ARE A HONEY BEE! and YOU ARE A RACCOON!, and it is adorable! The guide fea­tures cre­ative art projects, games, and writ­ing and sci­ence-relat­ed activ­i­ties to extend both the fun and edu­ca­tion­al val­ue of the books. You can down­load it HERE. Huge thanks to Deb­bie Gon­za­les at Guides by Deb for cre­at­ing these won­der­ful resources for par­ents and educators.

You Are a Honey Bee! headband craft You Are a Honey Bee! board game You Are a Raccoon! mask craft Habitat survival skills charades game

Recent appearances

I’ve been doing so many excit­ing school vis­its, sto­ry­times, and vir­tu­al and online events. Here are just a few!

  • Watch the #GreenPB2023 Cel­e­brate Earth Pic­ture Book Par­ty excerpt for You Are a Hon­ey Bee! here
  • Watch the #GreenPB2023 Cel­e­brate Earth Pic­ture Book Par­ty excerpt for You Are a Rac­coon! here
  • Click here to watch the SCBWI-WWA spring 2023 Inside Sto­ry excerpt for both books in the Meet Your World series
  • I pre­sent­ed an inter­ac­tive in-per­son storytime/signing event at the love­ly Invi­ta­tion Book­shop in Gig Har­bor, WA
  • I was fea­tured in this fun inter­view on YA and Kids’ Books Central
  • I was on the fac­ul­ty for SCBWI-WWA’s Great Cri­tique event
  • I pre­sent­ed a vir­tu­al You Are a Hon­ey Bee! read-aloud on Stream­able Learning
  • I was delight­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a pan­el called Full STEAM Ahead for SCBWI-Oregon
  • I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised that Two Truths and a Lie was fea­tured in a list of “The best books to improve kids’ crit­i­cal think­ing” on Shepherd.com
  • I pre­sent­ed sev­er­al vir­tu­al and in-per­son author vis­its at schools, plus an in-per­son sto­ry­time event for preschool­ers at a local library. I wish I could show you their adorable faces and match­ing shirts, but to pro­tect their pri­va­cy you’ll have to set­tle for this:

I was also for­tu­nate to be able to attend Kin­dling Words West at the Whid­bey Insti­tute and spend a week work­ing on my mid­dle-grade fan­ta­sy nov­el in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­er indus­try pros. Here’s what my room looked like. Isn’t it cute?

What I’ve been reading… that you should, too!

Here are some of my favorite recent reads:

  • The Girl from Earth’s End by Tara Dair­man: Wow! This book blew my mind in the best kind of way. There is so much packed into this mid­dle-grade nov­el, but some­how it doesn’t feel over­whelm­ing. Instead, it feels just right, like a warm hug from a dear friend.
  • Shermy and Shake, the Not-So-Nice Neigh­bor by Kir­by Lar­son: A sub­tly sweet chap­ter book about an unex­pect­ed friend­ship, served up with equal parts humor and heart.
  • ALL of the #GreenPB2023 releas­es! Seri­ous­ly, if you have any inter­est in sci­ence, nature, ani­mals, or the envi­ron­ment (or know a young read­er who does), check out these won­der­ful new pic­ture books.

Writing (or life in general, really) advice

I was read­ing this inter­view with Abi Cush­man, author/illustrator of Wom­bats Are Pret­ty Weird, and came across this per­fect lit­tle tid­bit of writ­ing advice:

“…the impor­tant thing to real­ize is that feel­ing uncom­fort­able in the process just means you’re chal­leng­ing your­self, and that’s a good thing.”

I’ve always tried to live my life by that mantra, and I think it’s such a good thing to remem­ber. Dis­com­fort doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean you shouldn’t do the thing, or that you’re doing it wrong. It just means you’re push­ing your­self out­side of your com­fort zone, which is nec­es­sary for growth.

Announcing the Emmanuel’s Dream audiobook!

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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

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.)

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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


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