One of my fave children’s authors is back from another trip to Africa. Surf by to see her petting a cheetah and read Jane Kurtz: Visit to Southern, Eastern, and Western Africa (2004) by Jane Kurtz.

Books on my to-read pile: Offsides by Erik Esckilsen (Houghton Mifflin, 2004); The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins, 2005)(the sequel to The Birchbark House); The Education of Patience Goodspeed by Heather Vogel Frederick (Simon & Schuster, 2004)(sequel to The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed), The Moon Came Down on Milk Street by Jean Gralley (Henry Holt, 2004); Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers: How A First Lady Changed America by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein (HarperCollins, 2005); Hana in the Time of the Tulips by Deborah Noyles (Candlewick, 2004); Pterosaurs: Rulers of the Sky in the Dinosaur Age by Caroline Arnold, illustrated by Laurie Caple (Clarion, 2004).