I had a wonderful time visiting two elementary schools in Antioch, California, this past week, presenting three assemblies and then conducting a "mini-workshop" for a select group of students in the school library. Many of the students at Jack London Elementary School made dioramas of  my books and displayed them in the library. All of the teachers made a variety of pies to celebrate "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie." They were yummy! At Lone Tree Elementary School, the teachers provided a potluck luncheon with a Western theme, in honor of "Desert Rose and her Hifalutin' Hog." The students decorated the cafeteria with "recipes" of themselves, much like the recipe for Evie on the jacket flap of "Eggs Over Evie." All in all, it was an exciting and fun two days!

I will be visiting two schools in Antioch, California, later this week: Jack London Elementary on Thursday and Lone Tree Elementary on Friday. While there, I will be speaking to children in Kindergarten through 5th grade. My assemblies will incorporate puppets and a power point presentation, in which I talk to the students about writing, editing, rewriting and the entire writing process, including fan mail! Should be fun!

Some rather disappointing news...the sequel to IF THE SHOES FITS, entitled WHEN THE WIND BLEW has been rescheduled for publication with Henry Holt in early 2014. That means we will have to wait another year to see the book in print! The story is a humorous take-off on the nursery rhyme, "Rock-A-Bye Baby," in which the wind blows so hard, that the baby is whisked right out of the tree and lands on the shoe/house owned by the "Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe." All of the nursery rhymes become hopelessly rearranged, until the wind shifts and blows everything back into its proper order It's well worth waiting for! 

Another busy weekend! I flew to North Carolina for a wedding and family reunion. While in Chapel Hill I went into a book store and had a chance to browse through the new graphic novel of A WRINKLE IN TIME , originally written by Madeleine L'Engle and newly adapted/illustrated by Hope Larson. I was wary at first, since this novel was perhaps one of my very favorites as a child. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the new version was just as entertaining - and moving - as the original. The characters of Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin were depicted as I remembered them, but the predominantly blue tint to all of the illustrations seemed a little bland. Larson's interpretation of the story itself was spot on, although she did make a few changes to the original story. Oftentimes, I found the illustrations not to be as scary as my own imagination, but the planet of Camazotz was perhaps even more disturbing than I had envisioned it. I would highly recommend this book, especially to anyone who has not read the original, and I admire the time and care that were put into this graphic novel.

What a fabulous weekend! I attended the Orange County Children's Book Festival in Southern California, where I met a number of other children's authors and had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion with authors Gillian Hutshing, Sharron Hopcus and Hayley Rose. After the panel presentation I sold autographed copies of my books in the "Author's Corner" and had a chance to browse the many booths and exhibits. Except for the extreme heat (almost 100 degrees) it was a wonderful day.