SLJ’s Best of 2016–Quick, Little Monkey!
So happy to learn that Quick, Little Monkey! is on School Library Journal’s list of the best children’s books of 2016. “Only a monster could look into those eyes and tell this book it couldn’t be on a Best of the Year list,” the reviewer says. This is how I feel about that!
Happy Holidays!
There’s a wind chill of -23 outside, so here’s a little gift to lift your spirits this chilly holiday season: a quick peek inside Deadly Wish, the upcoming sequel to Deadly Flowers:
Read MoreOnce inside, I shut the door behind me and stood still. It was really the kind of job I needed a dark lantern for, but that would have been too much to smuggle into the house and keep hidden from Goro’s watchful eye. The clothes and the knife had been difficult enough.
I would have to complete this task without using my sight. I closed my eyes, so that I would not distract myself by straining to see. My other senses opened up, like night-blooming flowers. Hearing sharpened. My sense of smell heightened. My skin tingled with eagerness to touch.
Jacket Art for Deadly Wish!
Deadly Wish, the sequel to Deadly Flowers, has a glorious brand-new jacket. When I see jacket art for a novel, it always feels startling–oh, they’re really going to make this into a book? Gosh. I had no idea.
What I’ve Been Reading
Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia
Rita Williams-Garcia got a lot of attention for One Crazy Summer but I think this follow-up is even stronger. Three sisters, growing up in the sixties, head down to Alabama to spend the summer with their grandmother and great-grandmother.
With the election and the news and the Black Lives Matter movement and the bewildering fact that, in 21st century America, armed white men can be acquitted for taking over public property while black teens can be shot for wearing a hoodie while buying Skittles, race has been much on my mind lately, especially since I’m a white mother raising a child of color. Maybe that’s why this book struck such a deep note with me, as Fern, Vonetta, and Delphine learn more and more about exactly what their family is–African-American, sure, but also Native American and white and complicated and painful and flawed and lonely and ever-changing, in the end, together no matter how much it hurts.
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly