Sameera Righton, the main character in First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (excerpt) and First Daughter: White House Rules by Mitali Perkins (Dutton), is blogging about the real first kid wannabes in the ’08 campaign from now until November 2008 at www.sparrowblog.com. To celebrate the release of the first novel in this two-book series, ten signed copies will be given away. Here’s how to win:
THIS SUMMER: Five libraries (school or public) can win free signed copies as visitors come to Sparrow’s blog (www.sparrowblog.com) from June 15 to Sept. 1 and leave the name of the library they love in the comments. The five most frequently mentioned libraries win the books.
PUB DATE CONTEST: Five libraries can win free signed copies on pub date by linking to and sending the most visitors to Sparrow’s ’08 campaign blog (www.sparrowblog.com) before June 14, 2007. Right now, the libraries in the lead are: Beaverton City Library, Oregon; Westerville Public Library, Ohio; Mamaronek Library, New York; West Bend Library, Wisconsin; Bellingham Public Library, Washington.
More News & Links
Among the BEA reports, it’s a thrill to see a photo of K.L. Going (right), Dian Curtis Regan (left), and my own agent Ginger Knowlton (center) of Curtis Brown Ltd. at Alice’s CWIM Blog. Read author interviews with Dian and K.L. from Cynsations.
Congratulations to honorees of the Boston Globe-Horn Book awards. Here’s sending a personal cheer to M. T. Anderson and Tim Wynne-Jones!
High School Scrapbook by Karla Lucht and Jane Optie, Spring 2007, LIS 404 Literature and Resources for Young Adults Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Entertaining and informative new site links YA books and movies to the high school experience in the following categories: academics, extracurricular, love and life, and non-fiction. It also features short interviews with such YA authors as Brent Hartinger, Lauren Myracle, Justina Chen Headley, Dia Calhoun, and Cynthia Leitich Smith on our own high school experiences. See also interviews with Brent, Lauren, Justina from Cynsations.
Hot Off the Press: A Sneak Peek at Publisher’s Newest and Hottest Titles from Children’s Book Council. Highlights include: Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Orchard, 2007); More Saints: Lives and Illuminations by Ruth Sanderson (Eerdmans, 2007), The Rainforest Grew All Around by Susan K. Mitchell, illustrated by Connie McLennan (Sylvan Dell, 2007); and The Buffalo Soldier by Sherry Garland, illustrated by Ronald Himler (Pelican, 2007).
PaperTigers Blog: “speaking of multicultural books for children and young adults.” New on the scene from PaperTigers; be sure to bookmark this one!
R.A. Nelson: new official site of the author of Teach Me (Razorbill, 2005) and Breathe My Name (Razorbill, 2007). Here’s a sneak peek from his bio: “R.A. Nelson lives in north Alabama, works at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and loves poetry, quantum physics, old movies like It Happened One Night (Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert), spelunking, history, traveling, astronomy, archeology, basketball, exploring, and just plain old walking in the woods.” Read a Cynsaitons interview with R.A. Nelson.
“Setting As Character” by Timothy Hallinan from Absolute Write.
More Personally
An Interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith by Debbi Michiko Florence. Here’s a sneak peek: “For obvious reasons, people don’t usually think about vampires and restaurants together. But that juxtaposition freshened the blood, so to speak. It allowed me to offer something new to the old tradition.”
June giveaways at the Tantalize Fans Unite! MySpace group include signed copies of Over and Over You by Amy McCauley (Roaring Brook, 2005)(author interview), Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales edited by Deborah Noyes (Candlewick, 2004)(author interview), and Exile: Star Wars Legacy of the Force by Aaron Allston (Del Rey, 2007).