Lita spoke last week with Charity Nebbe, the host of Michigan Public Radio’s All Things Considered. There’s a link to the Michigan NPR page here. Or you can listen to the interview by clicking on the start button below:
(It’s about 6 minutes long — please let me know if the audio gadget has any problems…)
We just received our first copy of Mogo, The Third Warthog! We’re so excited that the book will be available soon — by July 1st.
This is the second Donna Jo Napoli book Lita has illustrated (the other one was Ugly). Here are a few of the interior illustrations:
When Lita was assigned this project we didn’t have time to go to Africa, but we did spend many days at the San Diego Zoo. Lita sketched critters all day long and we had a great trip. Here’s a picture of one of the warthogs that inspired Lita’s Mogo:
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Lots going on lately — outside the studio…
and inside the studio…
A friend of ours provided a caption for this picture of Pu: “Darwin kitty stays indoors today.”
It’s fun to have a bear in the neighborhood again this spring. Lita and her parents have been following the adventures of bears for years. Here’s one of my favorite pre-digital photos of a Yellowstone bear:
(Photo by Dale and Elva Paulson)
And here’s one of my favorite Lita drawings of a Yellowstone bear (with two cubs):
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New England Voices:
Three Area Authors Read from their New Books
Free & Open to the Public
Tuesday May 20, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Join us for an evening of readings from Barbara O’Connor, Susan Goodman and Lita Judge
Barbara O’Connor will read from her latest middle-grade novel Greetings from Nowhere. Barbara has written 14 novels and biographies for children and her books have won the Massachusetts Book Award and the Parents’ Choice Award.
“O’Connor’s knack for well-developed characters and feisty protagonists is evident, as is her signature Southern charm.”-School Library Journal
Susan Goodman will read from See How They Run: Campaign Dreams, Election Schemes and the Race to the White House. Susan is the author of dozens of non-fiction books for kids.
Using witty anecdotes and clear explanations, Goodman takes readers from the birth of democracy to the Electoral College; from front-porch campaigning to hanging chads. Illustrated by Ellwood Smith.
Lita Judge will read from One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, a 2008 ALA Notable Children’s Book, which she wrote and illustrated.
“Based on a true story of the author’s grandmother and mother, this touching bit of history humanizes war and demonstrates the difference a few people can make.”- Kirkus Reviews
Note: new location at Walsh Hall, Boston College (behind Vanderslice Hall)
This event includes book sales from the Children’s Book Shop and signing, as well as refreshments.
Free and Open to the Public. No registration necessary. Bring your friends and colleagues to introduce them to the FCB!
Where and When:
Walsh Hall, Boston College
Tuesday, May 20 7:30 p.m.
For more information:
The Foundation for Children’s Books
The Foundation for Children’s Books
P.O.Box 320284
21 Stratford Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02132-0003
617-469-7222
The Foundation for Children’s Books (FCB), a nonprofit, educational organization, was founded in 1983 to assist the professionals who most directly influence young readers: teachers, librarians, and parents. We achieve this through professional development programs, including a dynamic speaker series, innovative conferences and workshops, as well as through author visits and residencies in under-served schools.
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Last week I joined Lita at her events, in Michigan and then in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today, Lita is on her own and headed down to Atlanta for the International Reading Association Conference. She has a full and deserving schedule of dinners and parties in the evenings. The award luncheon is on Thursday—One Thousand Tracings won the 2008 IRA Children’s Book Award for Primary Fiction. We also heard that one of the IRA special interest groups on “Engaging Literacy Learners with a Global View” is announcing a list of Notable Books for a Global Society and One Thousand Tracings is on that list.
Lita will be doing two autographing events: at the Anderson’s Bookstore Booth (#2452) on Wednesday from 2-3 pm, and at the Hyperion Booth (#1958) from 10-11 am on Thursday. Please stop over and see her if you’re at the conference.
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Lita is over in Nashua this weekend at the New England SCBWI conference. Apparently she lent her laptop to Kevin Hawkes for the afternoon keynote. I was out yesterday, but when I got home there was a whispered message about the projector not working, and 600 people in the audience, and I could hear Kevin delivering his talk in the background, and Lita said something about being under a table with a bunch of wires and a couple of confused tech guys. These conferences sound fun, maybe I should start going.
I’m proud to say that Lita got the laptop and projector working with about 5 seconds to spare — after the tech guys gave up. If they had listened to Lita in the first place there never would have been a problem…
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One Thousand Tracings was selected as a 2008 Notable Children’s book in the Language Arts! This list of thirty books was selected by a committee of the Children’s Literature Assembly of NCTE. We saw the announcement and the full list of titles at Educating Alice.
Don’t you think the Children’s Literature Assembly has a great logo (Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes)?
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Lita is in snowy New Hampshire but I’m back in California where the poppies are in full bloom. And with the coming of spring, our good friend, Howard Mansfield, has a new book out next month—Hogwood Steps Out: A Good, Good Pig Story. Check out the good, good review today at Just One More Book.
Lita and I love pigs. Last year at the IRA conference in Toronto, we made a special trip to visit a pig farm just north of the city. This wasn’t just a pig farm—these pigs had been rescued from precarious situations (I’m sure you can imagine what I mean) and are now living in luxury accommodations on the side of a large pond with nice clean mud and shade trees. Look how happy they are…
Good luck to Hogwood!
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Lita visited the 1st and 2nd graders at Pompositticut School in Stow, MA yesterday. A lot of the presentation was about dinosaurs so we wanted to post a link to Lita’s dinosaur coloring pages.
They’re also available here.
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Andrea and Mark at Just One More Book (JOMB) did a wonderful podcast review of One Thousand Tracings in January at the JOMB coffee shop. I also read this Q&A interview about JOMB and I find their story and partnership quite interesting.
Lita did an interview with Mark in early February—they discussed books and blogs and the topic of partnership. The interview was just posted on JOMB yesterday—you can listen to it here.
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