What's New

Yesterday I visited Malta Avenue Elementary and caught up with my longtime friend, librarian Colleen Leclaire. We did a full day, then an evening reading program that drew over two hundred people – a great turnout for a Friday night. Kudos to the Malta Avenue parents and everyone who worked so hard to make it all happen.

Below are a just a few of the pirate designs for Backbeard’s crew made by the kids at Malta Avenue…

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I visited Division Street Elementary School in Saratoga yesterday, where the kids had done some really funny pictures of what Backbeard’s costume might have looked like had he been shopping for clothes in other parts of the world. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Hawaii...

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Just finished a grand day at Slingerlands Elementary. It’s a wonderful school, and the teachers and students all made me feel right at home. (Thanks especially to Mrs. Collen for being such a wonderful host.)

One project the Slingerlands kids worked on was to write a pages recommending ideas for what my next book should be. They were, by and large, genius. Here are a few of my favorites.

The next book should be about…

…the pig’s F.B.I. motorcycle.

…two jelly beans that talk and almost get eaten

…a special seed that can turn into a tree that can move and can change into anything.

…dinosaurs vs. Backbeard.

(and my favorite)

…Backbeard sells donuts.

I’m happy to report that the Lion’s Share DVD is now available from Nutmeg Media, perfect for school libraries everywhere. The people at Nutmeg did a great job with this, and I’m really pleased with the results.

Back to Farnsworth Middle School to do another series of presentations with Larry Tuxbury about Benjamin Franklinstein. Larry’s a language arts teacher at Farnsworth, and we’ve been working together on writing the book for the past couple years. It’s finally just about complete (due this September from Putnam) and we were able to share the whole process of writing and illustrating with the students.

In spite of the fact that we presented on the three days before Christmas vacation, everything went great. The kids had terrific questions, and Larry was on his best behavior. To top it all off, they fed us the most amazing sandwiches for lunch. A grand way to end 2009!