Barefoot Books invites you to bring books to Africa

Barefoot Books brings Books to Africa

Multi-cultural children’s book publisher Barefoot Books and non-profit Books For Africa (BFA) are embarking on an innovative partnership to bring Barefoot Books into the hands of children in classrooms and libraries across Africa. Since 1988, BFA has shipped more than 20 million books to 44 African countries and, with growing awareness of their organization and cause, plans to ship millions more in the coming years. To help BFA achieve their goal this holiday season, Barefoot is offering its community the opportunity to purchase an African-themed title online at a dramatically reduced price which will be sent to a child in Africa. Six titles are available, including We All Went on Safari: A Counting Journey Through Tanzania and Mama Panya’s Pancakes: A Village Tale from Kenya.
Additionally, Barefoot is calling on their grassroots network of home-sellers to support BFA’s mission, by selling beautiful African bookmarks for $1 a piece, with proceeds going towards shipping costs for the books.

Barefoot Books CEO Nancy Traversy says, “Barefoot is always looking to find like-minded partners who are making a difference in the lives of children all over the world. We are so excited to be working with Books for Africa and the entire Barefoot community to help bring books to the African children who so need them.”

“The beautiful books provided by Barefoot Books, which feature African themes, will be very exciting for our recipients in Africa to read,” says Books For Africa Executive Director Patrick Plonski. “We really appreciate this partnership with Barefoot Books which will provide high-quality books for us to send to children in Africa, and will also provide funds to help ship these books.”

Barefoot Books is launching the Books for Africa campaign this holiday season and promoting it through 2009.

About Barefoot Books Barefoot Books is an international children's publisher dedicated to creating award-winning, beautiful books which celebrate imagination, diversity and creativity. Our pioneering and innovative business model wholeheartedly embraces today's social networking opportunities and focuses on establishing grassroots, viral communities with a global reach. Our audience is central to our business philosophy as is our willingness to redefine and reinvent the way in which stories and children come together. Find out more at http://www.barefootbooks.com/.

CONTACT: Jeanne Nicholson, jeanne.nicholson@barefootbooks.com; (617) 995-4640

About Books for Africa
Books For Africa collects, sorts, ships and distributes books to children in Africa. Our goal: to end the book famine in Africa. Books donated by publishers, schools, libraries, individuals and organizations are sorted and packed by volunteers who carefully choose books that are age and subject appropriate. They are shipped in containers paid for by contributions from people like you. They are on once-empty library shelves, in classrooms in rural schools, and in the hands of children who have never held a book before. Each book will be read over and over and over again. When the books arrive, they go to those who need them most: children who are hungry to read, hungry to learn, hungry to explore the world in ways that only books make possible. Find out more at http://www.booksforafrica.org/

CONTACT: Patrick Plonski, Executive Director, patrick@booksforafrica.org; phone: 651-291-2713

An Interview with Patrick McDonnell - Author of "South"

I'd like to introduce you to Patrick McDonnell. Patrick is the creator of the comic strip Mutts and his characters, Earl the dog and Mooch the cat have delighted people of all ages all over the world. In addition to drawing the strip, Patrick has created several wonderful books including Art and The Gift of Nothing. His new book, South would make a wonderful gift for almost anyone this holiday season.

Here is an interview that I had with Patrick:

1. Where did the idea for Mutts come from?
I had wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a child. But when I graduated from the School of Visual Arts I started my career as a magazine illustrator. One of my favorite ‘characters’ in my illustrations was a little white dog. That dog and his guardian eventually evolved into Earl and his Ozzie in Mutts. Overall, I’d say that MUTTS is about my love for animals and for the art of cartooning.

2. Did you base the characters of Mooch and Earl on animals you knew?
Earl is based on my first dog Earl. Earl and I spent almost 19 years together. In fact, Earl is the star of WAG!, my next children’s book, which will be coming out in Fall 2009. Mooch’s personality is a combination of all the cats I’ve known throughout my life, and my cat MeeMow is a source of a lot of Mooch material.

3. How did you come up with Mooch’s wonderful way of speaking?
Comics have a long history of characters having funny speech patterns (like Popeye, for example). So when I started MUTTS, I knew that I wanted at least one of my characters to pay homage to that tradition. A friend of a friend would say Yesh on occasion, and I thought it would be funny if Mooch adopted that word. But things got out of hand, and soon Mooch was also saying shmaybe. Before long, Mooch was shhhing all over the place.

4. You use your MUTTS strips and characters to make people aware of the plight of homeless dogs and cats. Have you always cared about this cause?
I have always had a love and deep concern for animals. But doing a daily strip that centers on viewing the world through their eyes made me more aware of how tough they have it in this world. After my becoming a member of the HSUS Board of Directors, I became acutely aware of the issues.

5. Aside from donating money to shelters, adopting a pet from a shelter, and spaying or neutering their pets, what do you think people can do to help homeless animals?
Well, these three things are a great start to ending the problem of homeless pets. Other things we can do are volunteering at the shelter (maybe simply by walking the dogs or playing with the cats), donating blankets or other items such as toys and food, and by telling your friends to not buy a new companion animal from a pet store. 99% of dogs sold in pet stores come from puppy mills.

6. In your children’s books you focus on simple yet incredibly important themes such as friendship. When you start creating a book do you know ahead of time what the theme of the book is going to be, or does the inspiration come to you when you put pencil to paper?
When I write my books I usually have a vague idea for a story in mind. When I put pencil to paper I then try to get out of the way and let the story tell itself. In a way, I feel it’s a form of meditation.

7. When you are drawing are you like your character Art (from your book “Art”) in that your imagination takes over?
ART is definitely autobiographical. Making art is a form of play for me and something I love to do.

8. What were you trying to tell people when you wrote your book “The Gift of Nothing?”
Some of the most important things in our lives are the small, everyday moments when we are simply present. Just being together with family and enjoying the time spent with them. The gift of life is all around us, and this book celebrates that gift.

9. When you started to draw the Mutts strips did you ever think that you would be creating stand-alone books one day?
Like comic strips, children’s books tell a story using words and pictures. As such, I’ve always had a fascination for them, and felt I would someday create a picture book. The daily MUTTS comic strip, however, consumed almost all my time for a long time. When I was able to make some space in my schedule, doing children’s books became a priority. I really enjoy this medium.

10. I believe that your books are suitable to readers of all ages. Was it your intention to create stories that are ageless or did this just happen by chance?
That’s so nice of you to feel that way about my books. Since the MUTTS comic strip is geared for all ages, I guess my children’s books have a similar ‘appeal’. Our sense of childhood wonder never leaves us if we open to that possibility.

You can find out more about Patrick and Mutts on Patrick's website.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a

Best wishes,

Marya

An interview with Matthew Price - Author and Publisher

I'd like to introduce you to Matthew Price, a children's book author and publisher. Recently his publishing house, Matthew Price Limited, set up an office in the United States and several Matthew Price books are already available. Curious to learn more about Matthew and his work, I interviewed him.


What prompted you to set up a publishing house here in the United States?
Our children had gone through high school in the States and didn't want to come home! What choice? We had to move and move we did with absolutely everything.

Is the publishing world in the United States very different from the one in the U.K.?
Yes and no. The principles are the same, the taste is different in some ways. How do you decide which books to publish? Mostly gut instinct as a father, but also as a former children's book editor, and as a former children book buyer.It is unusual for a publisher to also be a writer.

Do you think that your experiences as a writer make you a better publisher? Yes, in some ways, it's very inconvenient in others! The compulsion to write gets in the way of being an efficient manager. On the other hand, it makes me much more empathetic to what writers and artists go through. The number one complaint from authors is that publishers don't communicate enough with them. As an author myself I view the editorial and publishing process with an authors eye. I am gentle with my editorial comments, and keep the author informed during all phases of production and marketing. That allows us to have wonderful, long term relationships with our authors.

Your company motto is "Education through delight" and you have produced several books for young children that fit this bill. Do you think you will publish books for older children too?
It's possible, but I want to get the younger books established first. This is our area of strength.

What do you think we need to do to make sure the unhappy economy does not have a dire effect on the children's book industry?
Traditionally children's books have not suffered as much as adult books in a recession. None of us is recession-proof but all we can do is try and publish only those books that we believe in wholeheartedly. That is what we should do all the time anyway, so maybe this difficult time will help us to concentrate our minds!

I have read that you "grew up in a bookshop." Where was this, and what was it like?
What I meant by this is that I grew up in the book trade in a bookshop. My first job was in Dillon's University Bookshop in London and I spent five years there, ending up as the children's book buyer. It came to be the basis for all my editorial instincts. As an experience for a publisher, it was invaluable. When I got my first job in a large publisher and we would discuss a book, I would sometimes say: "Well, I couldn't have sold it in the bookshop," and people would glare at me, because in England it was very unusual to go straight from a bookshop into an editorial job and they had not had this experience.

Do you have plans to write another book?
Yes. What will it be? I honestly don't know. I have foresworn writing many times but it always seems to come back and get me.What do you like most about being a publisher? I have to confess, I love the whole business. I love working with authors and artists. I love working with other publishers. I love working with reps, librarians, booksellers, the professionals of the book trade. We have very strong international links and I love to discover people all over the world who love the same things I do. I even love the wheeling and dealing.What do you like most about being a writer? I love to put something new where there was nothing before. I think what I mean by this is that I love to create something original.


Take a look at my review of Matthew's Book, Room for one more.

An interview with Keith Szafranski

Keith Szafranski is the author of a wonderful new series of picture books starring Barrington, a bear who loves to travel and who takes photographs of the things he sees. You can read my review of the first Barrington book, Barrington visits the Emperor on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review website.

This is what Keith had to say about his books and his work:

Where did you get the idea for your Barrington Bear stories?
About 2 1/2 years ago an artist friend of mine suggested I use my photographs to do a children's picture book. She had recently come out with one using her artwork and was doing very well with it selling them at the various
art shows she did around the country. The idea intrigued me but is was almost two years before I came up with an idea that I liked. One day, in April 2007, my wife and I were walking the dog and this idea of having some sort of stuffed critter take my place on all of my travels came to me literally out of nowhere. I really liked the idea and started working out some of the details. Less than a year later the first Travels With Barrington Bear book was released.

Is he your bear and where did his name come from?
Yes, Barrington is my creation. I designed and sewed Barrington and all of his clothes. I really did not want a bear at first because so many people used bears in their stories. But eventually I succumbed and Barrington was 'born.' When it came time to name my bear I went to babynames.com. At first Barrington was going to be a photographer just like me. I wanted his name to go with either 'bear' or 'photographer' so I looked through boys names under 'b', 'f' and 'ph'. I listed about 60 names I liked and then started the process of elimination. I soon decided against having Barrington be a photographer as such and just have him be a bear that liked to take photographs. That eliminated all of the 'f' and 'ph' names and just left the 'b's'. I then started going through the list again, checking online to see if anyone else had used a particular name for a bear. I always passed over 'Barrington' because I really liked it and eventually quit the elimination process and went with Barrington.

How did you incorporate the image of Barrington into your photos so well?
Each of the first two books has only one image where Barrington was actually in the shot as taken. In all of the rest I used Photoshop to place him in the image. This is the most fun aspect of doing these books for me. Like most Photoshop
skills that I possess, adding Barrington to a scene so it looks like he is really there just took practice. I learned as I went along. I do everything pretty much by 'hand'. I know there are faster and perhaps easier ways to incorporate the little bear into the original photos but I don't think they work as well. I even draw Barrington's shadow like the one on the cover of Emperor by hand.

Clearly you went to see the Penguins in the Antarctic. What was it like?
I have been to Antarctica twice. Once was pretty much just for the Emperor penguins. That's the trip the first story is based on. The other time was for several species of penguin as well as seals, albatross and many other birds and animals. It's a gross understatement to say that Antarctica is an amazing place, especially the penguins. The Emperors see very few people during the year and so are quite 'tame'. While we as tourists are not allowed to approach the birds closer than 15 feet, it is okay for the penguins to come closer to us and they often do. I had literally thousands of penguins going about their daily routine of eating, sleeping, preening and taking care of their young within arms length. I hope I can see them again someday.

You have written one more book about Barrington's adventures. Do you have plans for many more?
After I first came up with the idea of Barrington, I quickly wrote down about ten book titles for the series and have since added two or three more that came to mind. I could probably go on ad infinitum with the series but will most likely limit the total to somewhere between twelve to fifteen books. Assuming they sell well enough that is. I have already begun work on book three in the series, Barrington Bear's Yellowstone Adventure.

When you are not writing about Barrington you are a professional photographer. How did you get interested in this field?
Well, to tell you the truth, the traveling actually came first. I always like to travel and see new places, especially the mountains. My wife and I took the kids out west a few times while we were living in Wisconsin. I was usually unhappy
with the photographs that I returned with from these trips. I was using an inexpensive instamatic camera at the time. Then, in 1979, a few months before a vacation to Arizona I decided to buy an inexpensive 35mm camera. It was almost love at first click. I really enjoyed the control I now had over my photographs. I practiced all the time. Four years after picking up the 35mm for the first time my wife and I quit our jobs and moved to Montana so I could pursue a career in wildlife photography.

What are you trying to do with your Barrington Bear books besides giving your readers something to smile and laugh at?
I really want to teach the reader something about the world around them. Not just information about places and animals but also the seemingly unimportant things like how you get from Montana to Antarctica. I want to do this in a fun
way so the kids (no matter what age) will not realize they are actually learning something along the way. I try to make my stories as true to life as possible with a little whimsy thrown in. Most of the things that happen to Barrington on his travels really happened to me. Of course, I didn't get to dance with penguins. There are some advantages to being a bear!

Please visit Keith and Barrington at the Barrington Bear Website.

Interview with Jackie Morris illustrator

I'd like you to meet Jackie Morris, the talented artist who illustrated a beautiful fairy tale called Singing to the sun.

What did you think when you were first sent the text for Singing to the Sun?
I first heard the story of Singing to the Sun at a children’s book festival in Swansea. Viv was doing an evening event and I went along to listen. The story made pictures dance in my head, and after the event Viv asked me if I liked it. When I said yes she replied “Good, because I wrote it with you in mind.’ And from there we began to look for a publisher together. The story was originaly published in a collection of stories and the others in the collection are equally beautiful.

What do you think of the message that it imparts to young, and not so young, readers?
There are so many messages in the book if you want to look for them. For children one message is that maybe love is better than wealth and power, but it is a thing to be freely given. For fathers a reminder that daughters have free will and are fed up of being given away as prizes in stories. For parents the message can be that arguing is frightening for children, for women, that it is always a good idea to keep your wolves close, if you have a wolf, and that cats are smart and music can often have the answer.

The artwork that you created for the story has a magical, ethereal quality. What inspired you to create these pictures in this way?

I love medieval manuscript, textiles, animals and birds. I suppose really the words inspired the images. Each book that I do is different, each a response to a different text

How were the illustrations created?
The illustrations were created with watercolour on hot pressed paper, after 27 years of practice and much blood sweat and tears. Firstly I did small thumbnail drawings and sketches trying to catch the characters, then went on to the finished work, which is larger than the published work. Some pieces flowed easily, others I had to work on a few times. I loved the wolves who are very much a side issue in the text, so I brought them down from the golden mountains to be beside the princesses, ready for when the princes get the answer wrong.

This is not the first fairy-tale that you have illustrated. Do you have a fondness for this genre?
I have a fondness for story. I love listening to storytellers. I love the way a really good story can live in your heart and mind and grow with you and help to make sense of the mad world we live in.

What do you think fairytales give children?
Hope. Understanding. Courage. Insight. Pleasure. Passion.Music. A connection through history to all the people in the world who have ever told the story before, who have ever listened to it. A place in the world and in time.

Did you like to read when you were a child, and if so what did you like to read?
I struggled to read when I was a child and only persisted because I knew that what was hidden in books behind the code of the alphabet was worth knowing, worth breaking through to. What I love to read now is stories that have magic, not necessarily witches and wizards, but that magical power where an author can make you believe, make you care, for a character whose bones are paper, whose blood is he letters on a page. Discoveries this last coupe of years have been Robin Hobb and The Book Thief and Stardust. Two of my favorite books I read as a child were White Fang and The Call of the Wild.

You have created illustrations for many charitable organizations. What do you like about doing this kind of work?
I like to use the work I do for good. I do not want to advertise cars, do illustrations for banks and big business. I always felt very priveleged to be able to work for Amnesty International and Green Peace and Oxfam.

You often use one of your cats as a model for your paintings. What does he think of this?
Max is a private kind of cat who likes to sleep in cupboards. He does not often come to sit on a lap and tends t keep out of the limelight, unlike the ginger brethren who dominate the house. But I think he is secretly quite pleased. He is very handsome and dark like midnight with emerald eyes.

If you could travel anywhere in the world to paint where would you go and why?
I would go to Venice in Spring. The colours of the buildings, the madness of the waterfilled streets, the crumbling decay are all inspiring. I would go to the arctic where the colours play in the sky and on the land and I would wait and watch for polar bears. I would go to Bhutan or Nepal and sit quietly and watch cranes fly over high mountains and hope a snowleopard would be watching me. I would go beneath the sea where great whales sing and see them swim and leap from the water, before it is too late, before there are no more and I would go to a jungle in India and wait for a tiger to burn the emerald forest bright. And for now I will go to my studio and paint some more.

You can find out more about Jackie on her wonderful website. If you are a cat lover do take the time to visit the blog written by her cat companions. Her journal will show you what the life of an illustrator is like.

Diane Z. Shore Blog Book Tour - Day Three

Today I will be interviewing Diane Z. Shore:


What made you want to write about this topic?
It was at an SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators )fall conference back in 1998, where a panel consisting of a librarian, an editor and an agent all expressed the need for more Thanksgiving books. I really like the Thanksgiving holiday, but wouldn’t say I was gung ho about writing a book about it. A year later, I was checking out books at our local library and one of the books I checked out was titled This Is the Pumpkin, a contemporary story about Halloween, written in a variation of cumulative rhyming verse. I thought that this format could work for a contemporary story about Thanksgiving and started out writing This Is the Turkey. That story was going nowhere, so I thought why not write about the First Thanksgiving using the same cumulative rhyme format, and calling the book THIS IS THE FEAST. FEAST was the first book I sold, back in Nov. of 2000, but because of editor and illustrator changes it has taken eight years to come out! ( I sold three books after FEAST which came out before FEAST was published.)

Did you do a lot of research before you began to write?
Yes, definitely! For This Is the Feast, I checked out every book I could find on the First Thanksgiving, both adult and children’s. A couple of the Pilgrims kept diaries so I had primary sources, too! I found the research to be very interesting and exciting, or as I tell the students when I visit schools, “very wowing!” I discovered I really loved non-fiction, and thought about other historical events that might work written in the cumulative rhyme format, and that’s when I came up with THIS IS THE DREAM. That book actually started out as THIS IS THE MARCH, about the 1968 march on Washington D.C., but decided that was too narrow an approach, so I expanded it to the entire Civil Rights Movement. For research I watched videos and read lots of books. Most of the research material for DREAM was primary sources For THIS IS THE GAME, which comes out in 2010, and is about the history of baseball, I watched Ken Burn’s nine-part documentary on baseball and read lots of adult non-fiction books. For THIS IS THE EARTH, (publication date pending) I read lots of newspaper articles as well as books on the environment. The next book I’d like to write is THIS IS THE FLAG.

The rhymes in your book flow beautifully from page to page. How did you achieve this?
Thank you! Lots and lots of practice. Like I tell the kids when I visit schools, writing is like playing a musical instrument or playing a sport. The more you practice, the better you get at it. You should read some of my earlier poetry, you would cringe! But I would guess that Cal Ripkin and Derek Jeter didn’t start out hitting home runs when they started playing baseball.

Do you have a fixed writing schedule that you follow?
Not anymore. Before I was published I used to get up in the wee hours of the morning (before the cat was awake!) to write. That’s when everything is fresh in my mind. Nowadays, I spend most of my time traveling, visiting schools with my A-Rockin’ and A-Readin’ program. I love to talk to the kids and inspire them to read. Now I only write during the summer.

Some people have the mistaken impression that writing in rhyme is easy. What kinds of problems do you face when you are writing in verse?
It may be easy for others but not for me! I think the hardest part about writing a poem is getting the meter or rhythm right. I actually started writing poetry by changing the words to nursery rhymes. When you use an existing rhythm, you have a pattern to follow. Then I bought a rhyming dictionary which helped explain different meters.

So far you have mostly written picture books, early readers, and articles. Is there a genre that you would really like to try some day, and if so why?
I love to write for children. I think I’m going to stick with that.


What kinds of books did you like to read when you were a child?
I loved Dr. Suess and Amelia Bedelia. I loved the page in Amelia Bedelia where Mrs. Rogers told her to draw the curtains, and Amelia sat write down and drew the curtains. It’s pretty cool that my newest book How to Drive Your Sister Crazy is similar to Amelia Bedelia in that they are both Level 2, I Can Read Books published by HarperCollins.


Here is a little more information about Diane Z. Shore:

After 9½ years, 385 rejections, and a forest of sloppy copies, teacher-turned-author Diane Z. Shore published her first picture book, BUS-A-SAURUS BOP, a rollicking, rhyming read-aloud, and winner of the 2004 Children’s Choice Award.
Now a full time author and read-aloud advocate, Diane writes in a variety of genres and her books have been translated into many languages. Her books include LOOK BOTH WAYS, ROSA LOVES TO READ, THIS IS THE DREAM (Civil Rights Movement), THIS IS THE FEAST (Thanksgiving), and the forthcoming THIS IS THE GAME (Baseball), plus her new beginning reader, HOW TO DRIVE YOUR SISTER CRAZY, a HarperCollins I Can Read!™ inspired by and written especially for reluctant readers.
Diane travels across the US with her lively “A-Rockin’ and A’Readin’ school presentations inspiring thousands of kids to read! Visit her website at http://www.dianezshore.com/


I hope that you enjoyed this blog book tour.

DianeZ. Shore Book Blog - Day Two

Children's author and storyteller, Diane Z. Shore says her favorite thing about writing for children is meeting the kids. She writes picture books, early reader chapter books, poetry, short stories, games/puzzle pages, and non-fiction. “Humorous stories and non-fiction are my favorite things to write," says Diane.

Her work has been published in a variety of magazines including Highlights for Children, Cricket, Spider, Ladybug, Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill, Turtle, Children's Playmate, Boys' Quest, and various teaching magazines. Her poetry has won national awards and has appeared in several anthologies, including Miles of Smiles, If Kids Ruled the School, and Rolling in the Aisles. Her nonfiction piece "Presidential Dentures" was awarded the 2002 History Feature of the Year Award given by Highlights Magazine. Diane’s award-winning books include This is the Dream, illustrated by James Ransome, This Is the Feast (HarperCollins), illustrated by Megan Lloyd, Bus-A-Saurus Bop, (Bloomsbury) illustrated by David Clark, Look Both Ways (Bloomsbury), illustrated by Teri Weidner, Rosa Loves to Read (Scholastic), illustrated by Larry Day and How To Drive Your Sister Crazy (I Can Read! Level 2, HarperCollins), illustrated by Laura Rankin, inspired by and written for reluctant readers.

Diane lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two children, Jennifer and Sam. Scampering about the house are Skruffy, a Jack Russell Terrier who holds the record for most bad hair days, and Punkin’, an orange tabby. Diane says her family, including Skruffy and Punkin’, have inspired her writing, but she adds, “The kids I meet at schools inspire me the most!” To find out more about Diane, visit her at her website.

Diane Z. Shore Book Blog - Day One

Welcome to day one of the This is the feast book blog. To kick off this tour I would like to begin with my review:

This is the feast
Diane Z. Shore
Illustrated by Megan Lloyd
Picture Book
Ages 4 to 7
HarperCollins, 2008, 978-0-06-623794-7
In 1620 a group of men, women, and children left behind the only life they knew to build new lives in America. Their dream was to be able to live in a place where they would not have to fear religious persecution. Their ship, the Mayflower, was tossed by ferocious storms. People were sick and fearful, but their prayers were answered and they reached America.
The people on the Mayflower - the pilgrims as they came to be called - had many troubles ahead of them as they tried to survive in America. Many of their number got sick and died. Food was scarce for many months, but then some Native Americans came to the Pilgrims’ village and they taught the newcomers how to grow food in the new land.
With the help of the Native Americans the Pilgrims were able to bring in a good harvest in the fall, and their future was more secure.
In this attractive picture book Diane Z. Shore tells the familiar story of the first Thanksgiving using beautifully constructed rhymes that flow across the pages. The rhythm of the text is almost musical, and children will soon get caught up in the story of how the Pilgrims survived their first year in the New World. With powerful imagery and an obvious appreciation for the history of her country, Diane Z. Shore tells a compelling tale.

Please visit these blog sites to see what else is happening on this tour today:
the 160acrewoods, A Mom Speaks, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Homeschool Buzz, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maggie Reads, Maw Books Blog, Never Jam Today, Olive Tree, Our Big Earth, Quiverfull Family, Reading is My Superpower, SmallWorld Reads

A new vampire book - Meet Kimberley Pauley

Let's face it. Vampire books are all the rage these days. Some are pretty dark, some are more like romances with fangs and a little (or a lot) of gore. And then there is Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, teen vampire (maybe)!! In this book first timer Kimberley Paul tells the story of a would-be (maybe) vampire who is a pretty normal teenager, except for all the vampire business that is. The story is funny, touching, and a delight to read. After reading and reviewing this title I decided that I just had to 'talk' to the author and find out a little bit more about her and her book.

Kimberley Paul has been reviewing children's books for some time and she has a wonderfully quirky sense of humor, which you can see if you check out her main website, her review website, her review blog and her book blog. Yes, she is a very busy lady.

This is what she had to say when I interviewed her via email:

What made you decide to write a story about vampires?
There were a few things, though if someone had told me before I started writing the story that my first published book would be about vampires, I would have laughed at them. I was actually working on some other manuscripts (this was back in 2005), mostly fantasies. Then I read this YA book about vampires (which shall remain nameless) and it had a lot of references back to Dracula (which I’d studied more times than I’d like to count in college and high school). And it got a lot of stuff wrong, which really annoyed me. That started me thinking about vampires in general and how all the stories are all so angst-y and dark and full of blood and slayers and evil vampires, etc., etc. ad nauseum (not that I don’t enjoy some of those stories, mind you). I thought it would be fun to try and do something different. The first line came to me and I kept trying to think of ways I could turn the “normal” vampire story upside down, but still remain true to the fundamental vampire myths that have been passed down for centuries in pretty much every culture. And I wanted a book that anyone could enjoy, even if they don’t normally read vampire stories.

Mina’s character is incredibly true to life. How did you get inside her head so effectively?
Aw, thanks! I’ve actually had a few people ask me that and it especially makes me smile when a teen tells me how they feel like Mina is a real teen. My husband would probably say that I’ve got an inner snarky teen or that I’ve just never grown up, both of which are probably true. It was actually so much fun and far too easy to write as Mina.

Have you thought about continuing Mina’s story? I know that I, for one, would love to find out what happens next.
I’m working on a sequel now and I’m again trying to not do the “typical” thing, so I think some of the elements of the sequel will surprise people. I’m having a lot of fun with it. Of course, it will depend upon how well the first book does, so everybody who loves Mina, go out and tell your friends to get to know her too! J

Did you do a lot of research into vampires before you started writing this book?
Yes, though I’d also learned a lot in college studying Dracula and the like. I actually took a class with James B. Twitchell, who literally wrote the book on vampires. The excerpt from the paper that Mina wrote on Dracula that is in the book actually came in part from something I’d written in college (it obviously wasn’t a very formal research paper!). Once I started writing the book, I researched the vampire myth in many different countries (you’d be surprised by how prevalent it is).

Sucks to be me is not just a great story, there is also a meaningful message there. What do you think that message is?
Thank you! I think a lot of people miss that. While most of the reviews have been good, I’ve seen a couple where the reviewer thought that Mina chose what she did because of a boy (!) or they don’t understand why she even debates the decision at all, which completely misses the point, I think. I definitely didn’t write it to be a “message book” but I wanted some good messages to be in there, if you want to find them. There are a few, to me…like being true to yourself and not doing things just because people expect you to…standing up for yourself and your friends and for what you feel is important…that things are better when you communicate…that family and friends matter…and that girls can be strong individuals with minds of their own. That sounds like kind of a lot of messages, doesn’t it? There’s more, really, and I suppose every individual gets whatever out of it that they will. And honestly, sometimes the message is different even to me (depending on my mood), and I wrote it! I’m curious – what do you feel the central message is?

Most books are written in the third person. What made you decide to write this book as if Mina is speaking to the reader in the here and now?
At first, it wasn’t a conscious decision. It’s just how it came out. I’d written in first person, past tense before and doing it in first person, present really felt to me like it added a nice immediacy to the story. It’s an interesting way to write, because even in my own journals I would normally write in past tense. I like how it came out, though I do have to watch out for slipping back into past tense at inappropriate times.

Sucks to be me was written for teenagers. Are you at all interested in writing a book or books for younger readers, and if so why?
I do have at least one middle grade level manuscript that is partially completed and notes on a few picture books, but YA is definitely my first love. However, since we had a baby this year, I’m finding myself paying a lot more attention to picture books than I ever used to. There are a lot of good ones out there, but also a lot of not-so-good ones, especially in board books.

In addition to writing this book you run a huge book reviewing website. How did you get interested in this work?
I was an English major in college and I took as many classes in children’s and adolescent lit as I could (and science fiction). I was working in the corporate world (which I finally got out of for good in 2005) and reviewing allowed me to exercise the other part of my brain and do something I liked versus something that paid the bills. I still enjoy it, but it is hard to find time for now with Max (our little boy) and trying to get the sequel completed. Luckily, I have some great volunteer reviewers who help out at YA Books Central. The site couldn’t exist today without them.

Like you I review A LOT of children’s books and YA titles. Do you ever find that you really need to read something completely different to take a break?
Every now and then, but there’s so much available in YA that I don’t often feel that way. You can truly find anything and I mean ANYTHING for YA readers. Romance? Got it. Dystopias? Bingo. Hard core sci-fi steam punk? It’s there. Pretty much anything is out there, if you look for it.

What was your favorite children’s book when you were little?
I was a voracious reader, so it is hard to pinpoint just one book. I also went through a lot of reading phases. But, some of my continuing favorites include Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers (which is sooooo not like the Disney version) and Mistress Masham’s Repose by T. H. White and the Madeleine L’Engle books featuring Charles Wallace.

Here is a little bit more about Kimberly:

Kimberly Pauley loves a good book you can sink your teeth into. She majored in English at the University of Florida and took as many classes in adolescent fiction (and science fiction) as she could find. As her alter-ego, the Young Adult Books Goddess of YA Books Central (yabookscentral.com), she has been reading and reviewing books since 1998 and meeting tons of great authors. Sucks to Be Me is her first novel, though she has published various poems and short stories over the years that she will even periodically admit to. She now lives in Illinois outside of Chicago with a husband who loves her even though he hasn’t read a young adult book since he was about twelve and can’t quite comprehend what the whole fuss is about, a brand-new baby boy already completely surrounded by children’s books, and a devious cat who resembles a tub of lard covered in fur.