Happy Perfect Picture Book Friday, dear friends.
This has been a busy blog week…We had posts on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and now, Friday. Plus, I am the guest blogger over at the Official SCBWI blog for the month of May – and my first post went live yesterday: https://scbwi.blogspot.com/2025/05/just-do-it-why-i-love-writing-contests.html it’s a 5-minute read and so I hope you’ll pop over there after you read this wonderful Perfect Picture Book Friday post:

Truly, our country and our world are facing challenging times…and books like today’s feature, I WILL ALWAYS BE, are more important than ever. And we are so lucky because author Rebecca Levington stopped by to share a bit about the story behind the story.

I really love cover reveals…it always feels like an unveiling of a masterpiece at an art museum. So much talent and hard work and planning go into the creation of a cover for a book…and I’m THRILLED to be part of this celebration for author Lydia Lukidis and illustrator Tara Hannon for their upcoming graphic chapter book. So let’s lift the curtain and reveal this wonderful cover for…GROUCHO, THE GROUCHY GROUNDHOG! And let’s welcome Lydia and Tara!

LYDIA AND TARA: Thanks for having us on your blog, Vivian!

Tara and I are super excited to reveal the cover for upcoming early reader graphic novel that we started working on ages ago…GROUCHO THE GROUCHY GROUNDHOG!

What’s the graphic novel about?

YES! It’s time to sing Happy Birthday to another wonderful new book!
You all know how much I LOVE nonfiction bios…and one of my dear kid lit friends, Ann Koffsky, has a brand new nonfiction early chapter book…a story that most of you have probably never heard about: THE PEDDLER AND THE PRESIDENT, written by Ann Diamond Koffsky, illustrated by Pedro Rodriguez and published by Apples and Honey Press.