I am thrilled to have the opportunity to join in with TLC’s Book Blog Tour for Margaret Peot’s debut picture book. Perfect Picture Book Friday is the PERFECT time to showcase this delightful story from Holiday House’s I Like to Read series.
Crow Made a Friend
Written and illustrated by Margaret Peot Continue reading
Hold onto your hats, dear friends. This Perfect Picture Book Friday post is JAM-PACKED!
First of all, the winners of Susanna Leonard Hill’s Halloweensie Contest have been announced. There were 145 entries…if you’d like to read some of them, hop on over: http://susannahill.blogspot.com/2015/11/2015-halloweensie-contest-winners.html
Because Susanna is one of the most generous and loving mentors in this kid lit community, in addition to the top winners, she also awarded a bunch of honorable mentions. And I’m thrilled to have gotten one of those. I even get to pick a prize…a choice from several books on the craft of writing. Putting your work out there can be scary, even if it’s not Halloween, but it’s a great way to grow as a writer and connect with others who are traveling the same path.
Another way to grow as a writer is to participate in Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo. The daily inspirational blog posts of Picture Book Idea Month will knock your socks off and get those creative juices flowing! http://taralazar.com/2015/11/05/piboidmo-day-5-david-michael-slater-listens-plus-a-prize/
A third way to grow as a writer is to read lots and lots of picture books. And that brings us to our Perfect Picture Book Friday selection for this week, which, by the way, got a starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Booklist! But I told you this post would be JAM-PACKED, right?
The author of today’s book, Laurie Wallmark, invited me to be part of her book blog tour. I am thrilled! At the end of the post you can find the link to the other blogs that are participating…I hope you will travel along. PLUS, Laurie has agreed to share some thoughts about Five Important Women in STEM. You’ll find her guest post after the book review. I know many of you are writing nonfiction picture books…or reading them to your kids. Laurie’s debut picture book is a delight and her post is fantastic!
Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine
Written by Laurie Wallmark
Illustrated by April Chu Continue reading
Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Boo!
Boo, who?
Don’t cry! It’s time for Susanna Hill’s 5th Annual Halloweensie Contest!
Courtesy Google Images
That’s right—the contest runs from today till Friday…so there is still plenty of time to participate. Here are some of the rules from Susanna’s post.
The Contest: write a 100 word Halloween story appropriate for children (title not included in the 100 words), using the words costume, dark, and haunt. Your story can be scary, funny or anything in between, poetry or prose, but it will only count for the contest if it includes those 3 words and is 100 words (you can go under, but not over!) Get it? Halloweensie – because it’s not very long and it’s for little people. 🙂 (And yes, I know 100 words is short but that’s part of the fun and the challenge! We got over 130 fantastic entries last year so I know you can do it!) Also, you may use the words in any form – e.g. haunt, haunts, haunted, darkness, darkening, costumed, whathaveyou 🙂 No illustration notes please!
For more details, please click here: http://susannahill.blogspot.com/2015/10/its-about-that-time.html
I love this contest—all of my previous entries have been rhyming, so I thought I would change it up a bit this year. I hope you enjoy my story. And when you finish reading it, please hop over to Susanna’s website where you will find many more Halloween tales.
Halloween Fever (99 words)
Philpot blew his nose. His eyes watered. His throat tickled. His skin flushed red with fever.
“Oh no!” he moaned. “Whoever heard of a red ghost?”
Never had Philpot missed going a-haunting on Halloween. Opening Wanda Witchner’s spell-book, he flipped to the ‘C’s’. Exploding CAKES. Flying CATS. Disappearing COLDS.
“Hocus Pocus Mucus Phlegm!”
Blink. No more watering.
Swallow. No more tickle.
Sniff. No more dripping snot. But his skin still glowed red.
“If magic won’t do the trick, I can use my imagination!”
And grabbing a white sheet as his costume, Philpot floated out into the dark night.
I hope you enjoy my little Halloween tale…for many more incredible stories, please visit Susanna’s Halloweensie Contest page: http://susannahill.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-5th-annual-halloweensie-writing.html
MORE GOOD STUFF – Please keep reading!
On Friday, I mentioned that November is a great month because of the PiBoIdMo Challenge. Well, there is another awesome picture book event coming up…Picture Book Month. Organized by author and literacy advocate Dianne de las Casas, this event is supported by everyone who loves picture books. Visit her website http://picturebookmonth.com every day during November and be prepared to be inspired and informed with posts by: Sudipta Bardan-Quallen, David Biedrzycki, Paulette Bogan, Mike Curato, Matthew Gollub, Julie Gribble, Julie Hedlund, Carter Highins, Molly Idle, Joe Kulka, Jennifer Gray Olson, Kathryn Otoshi, Anne Marie Pace, Rukhsana Khan, Robin Newman, Penny Parker Klostermann, Eric Litwin, Loren Long, Deb Lund, LeUyen Pham, Matt Phelan, Stephen Shaskan, Trisha Speed Shaskan, TJ Shay, Whitney Stewart, Holly Stone-Barker, Mo Willems, Natasha Wing, Matthew Winner, and Paula Yoo.
How lucky are we to have these incredible mentors sharing their love of picture books with us!
Thank you for stopping by. Your visit is much appreciated!
VIVIAN KIRKFIELD - Writer for Children 