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Laurie Ann Thompson

MY DOG IS THE BEST

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! 🙂

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.)

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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


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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