My husband, children’s book author Greg Leitich Smith, is the focus of the September 2005 edition of Secrets of Success, a wonderful column from children’s author Ellen Jackson that each month offers the inside scoop from “a children’s writer who is breaking new ground in his or her career and who is willing to share her secrets with the rest of us.”
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The World According To Kaley by Dian Curtis Regan (Darby Creek, 2005). Mr. Serrano has asked Kaley to write essays about world history, and she’s filling her notebook with them–doodles and all. She’s including FACTS and footnotes and graphs and maps (okay, with maybe a little urging), and, more importantly, she’s including her unique and spirited interpretation of times past.
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The Bravest Of The Brave by Shutta Crum, illustrated by Tim Bowers (Knopf, 2005). From the catalog copy: A young skunk heads home through the woods—alone. Or maybe not… Could there be robbers, or pirates, or ghosts, or trappers in the woods? And is our hero brave enough to keep them away? With bouncy rhymes,
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Far From Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters (Little Brown, 2005). Between working out, playing softball, and keeping up the plumbing business her dad left behind, Mike’s days in Coalton, Kansas are if not full, at least familiar. Then one day, she walks into class. Xanadu. The most beautiful, smart-ass, conflicted girl in the world. Mike falls fast,
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Jose! Born to Dance by Susanna Reich, illustrated by Raul Colon (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Vibrantly illustrated, this picture book biography chronicles the life of Jose Limon, one of the greatest dancers of all time. It begins with his birth in Culiacan, Mexico and continues through civil war and immigration to the New York stage.
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Downhomebooks, which interviewed my husband, author Greg Leitich Smith, about his debut novel, Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo (Little Brown, 2003) a couple of years ago, has posted an update in which Greg answers questions about his latest title, Tofu and T. rex (Little Brown, 2005) (read the whole,
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Teach Me by R. A. Nelson (Razorbill, 2005). From the catalog copy: “What happens when a high school student and her teacher cross that line? From the very first page, Nine speaks in a voice that is at once raw, honest, direct, and unusually eloquent. ‘There has been an earthquake in my life,’ she says, inviting you inside an experience that fascinates everyone-an affair between teacher and student-and giving a personal answer to the question: How does this happen?
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“I was surprised, because I’d always thought about blogging as a girl thing,
filled with ramblings about crushes and fights about friends and mothers.”
— from Thou Shalt Not Dump The Skater Dude by Rosemary Graham
Thou Shalt Not Dump The Skater Dude (And Other Commandments I Have Broken) by Rosemary Graham (Viking, 2005).
The Vanishing Point by Louise Hawes (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). From the catalog copy: “In lush, glowing prose, Louise Hawes’s historical novel draws readers into the life and art of sixteenth-century Bologna with a compelling account of Lavinia Fontana, arguably the most famous female painter of the Italian Renaissance. Here readers will find a coming-of-age story filled with quest,
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Boy Girl Boy by Ron Koertge (Harcourt, 2005). From the catalog copy: “Larry, Teresa, and Elliot are so tight, there’s no room in their circle for any more than three: boy, girl, boy. That’s just how it is. And when they graduate in a few months, they’re moving to California to begin their real lives–together. Or that’s the plan,
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