New Reviews for QUICK, LITTLE MONKEY!
Quick, Little Monkey! (on shelves in March 2016) got two lovely reviews last week!
Kirkus Reviews says:
Clinging to her father’s back, Little Monkey travels safely across jungle treetops until one day she’s distracted and tumbles downward to the dark forest floor, where hungry predators lurk. Rhythmic text describes how Little Monkey loves “to fly” from “vine to vine” and “branch to branch,” holding tightly to her Papa’s fur as he carries her “high and safe and quick in the bright, loud, green world.” When Papa warns Little Monkey to hide on a tree branch and stay still, she can’t resist reaching out for a butterfly and slips “down into a quiet dark.” Remembering Papa’s advice to hide, keep still, and hold tight, Little Monkey barely escapes a menacing ocelot by climbing up to a “coiled and curved” vine that turns out to be a sinister boa. Fortunately, Papa arrives in the nick of time. Bold pencil lines, atmospheric watercolor washes in bright greens, browns, and yellows, and double-page spreads of Little Monkey’s vertical descent and Papa’s horizontal flights perfectly convey the drama and energy of jungle life. Exaggerated close-ups of Little Monkey’s face capture her range of emotions, from exuberant joy as she rides on Papa’s back to paralyzing terror as she faces the unknown. Exciting jungle high jinks starring one adorable little monkey and her protective Papa.
And Publishers Weekly says:
As a baby pygmy marmoset rides on her father’s back, he shows her how to “read” the jungle landscape for predators—the shadow of wings above, the sound of “soft footsteps” on the ground below—and to stay safe. “Hide here” Papa tells her. “Keep still.” When Little Monkey can’t resist reaching for a butterfly, she tumbles away from Papa, “down into a quiet dark of slow roots and still earth and cold shadow,” and into some very dangerous territory. But Little Monkey remembers her lessons and manages to make her way back to Papa. The wide-eyed primate heroine is cute and plucky, and Judge’s ( Good Morning to Me! ) woodsy-toned watercolors create moments of high drama by playing up the difference in scale between the tiny marmoset and the rest of the world (in one scene, she’s dwarfed by the huge eyes of a hungry ocelot)…. It’s an evocative story of survival of the itty-bittiest. Ages 3–7.
An early Christmas present to a happy author!
Read MoreTalking (Not Writing)
A while back, I was listening to a great Maine Calling show on MBPN, about public speaking and how to do it well. Writers can’t just shut ourselves up in our writing caves and type; some days we actually have to get out there and speak to people about our work.
For my fellow writers and anybody who has to get up in front of people and (gasp!) talk, here are some things I’m learning:
- Don’t start with an apology (“I have a cold, please excuse me”), a summary (“So I’m going to talk to you today about…”) or a greeting/intro (“Hi, I’m Sarah.”). Start with a statement or a question. Give them something substantial.
- Don’t be afraid of silence. Pause between sentences and thoughts. It conveys authority and confidence. Rushing to fill up silence conveys nervousness.
- Look at people’s ears. You will engage them without making them feel stared at.
- Nervous energy wants to leave your body. Standing still and talking is hard. If you want to move, move–just do it deliberately, as if you meant to.
- Nobody wants you to fail. The audience is eager to be interested in what you say, because otherwise they are going to be bored. They want you to be good. They’re not mean. Try not to be scared of them.
And a couple of my own:
- Give yourself permission to bore one or two people. You won’t and can’t catch everybody with every speech.
- Practice, practice, practice. Then you’ll be able to say whatever it is even when you’re nervous.
- AND MY OWN PERSONAL, FAVORITE, ALL-IMPORTANT TIP OF ALL TIME: Never be afraid to be short. People will love you for it.
Read More
Ninjas for Christmas
All other gifts in the stock must beware the ninja nesting doll!
My fab editor at Boyds Mill sent me ninja nesting dolls for Christmas. I really do have the best job in the world. I bet nobody else on the planet got ninja nesting dolls from a colleague.
Note ferocious eyebrows and culturally correct weaponry. She (of course she’s a girl, as in my upcoming novel, titled Deadly Flowers for the moment) is carrying a sword, probably the shorter one known as a wakizashi, and a shuriken, or throwing dagger, the quintessential ninja weapon (from the movies, anyway. Probably they were not used as widely in real life, since they weren’t all that accurate. Pretty scary to have one whizzing by your face, though.).
Read MoreDo We Still Need Libraries?
I used to do library research here, at the New York Public Library. Loved it. There’s something about great architecture combined with books–transformative.
Rural Maine libraries on borrowed time. Libraries that survive on fundraisers, donations, and grants–or that are closing.
Stories like this make me weep. But then I think–I admit it. I don’t spend as much time in libraries as I used to.
Well, I just don’t. A lot of the research material I need is available online. A few keystrokes and I can get it, without leaving my desk. And like a lot of people in the publishing business, I am buried under books. I rarely need to go and pick up a paperback to while away the time. I’m too busy cowering guiltily away from the tomes piled up under my coffee table and on my nightstand.
So do we need libraries anymore? Let me think. What do libraries provide that I can’t get at home?
Access. Not every person, especially not every child, has a computer with high-speed internet. Libraries used to the the only place it was easy to find reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries–the kind of book you didn’t need every day, but when you needed them, you needed them. Now a lot of that stuff is available electronically, and libraries are there to make sure we are all able to get it–not just those of us who can afford expensive gadgets. Libraries are still about the democratization of information, without which a democracy is doomed.
Community. I see them. Sitting there. Staring at a screen, flipping through a magazine, curled up on a beanbag chair with a book. READERS. Reading is a solitary pursuit, but when I go into a library, I’m surrounded by evidence that I am not the only person who does it. Granted, some of these readers look a little odd, and some of them seem to be carrying on conversations with invisible table mates, and they aren’t all the kind of people I want to invite home for a cup of tea. I don’t like all of them. I don’t like all of their books. It doesn’t matter. They are fellow members of my tribe, people immersed in words and ideas. Libraries build that community–and we readers can’t do without it.
Expertise. It’s too easy to discount this today. We can shop for any book we want online; we can browse through a million websites; we have a world of literature at our digital fingertips. But librarians still know things the rest of us don’t. The wider and wilder the world of information and literature grows, the more we need guides who have read the maps and can point out the signposts.
Choice. Shelves and shelves of books spread out all around us. We don’t have to read the latest bestseller or the book that just got the hot review or the one our mother-in-law gave us for Christmas. We can look at all the possibilities on the shelves, and we can choose. How especially wonderful this is for children, who can break out from the books their parents have picked for them (“Mom. Nothing about India or adoption,” my six-year-old said sternly to me the other day. Rats. She’s on to me.) and read what catches their eyes and calls to their hearts.
And those things are worth $22.24 per taxpayer per year, or about 6 cents a day–which is what it costs per resident to keep the library in Mexico, Maine, open. A bargain.
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