The Bookaneer May 2007

THE BOOKANEER

May 1, 2007

On my adventure as the author of The Call to Shakabaz, I continue to meet terrific people who are working to make a difference in the world through the promotion of children’s literature. Let me share a few of the wonderful things I have discovered this month. And please send me your stories, resources, jokes, internet treasures, and more.

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” –George Eliot

NEWS ABOUT THE CALL TO SHAKABAZ

Announced today: The Call to Shakabaz is a winning Finalist in the Children’s Fiction Category of the National 2007 Indie Excellence Book Awards! This is the second national award the book has won since January. The Indie Excellence Book Awards will be formally announced at Book Expo America in New York during the first weekend in June. I won’t be there because on June 2^nd I will be moderating a discussion at the Mendocino LitFest here in Ukiah on the topic of hooking reluctant young readers on books. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions as I am still developing resources, materials, and ideas on this topic. (If you live in the area, please join us. Admission to LitFest is free.)

I will be at Carol’s Books in Sacramento as part of “Second Saturday” in June and I will be visiting the public library in Ewing, New Jersey and Alphabet Soup Bookstore in Lawrenceville, New Jersey in June while on vacation. Visit www.wozabooks.com and click on Author Events for details.

Please encourage children to email me with their ideas for the sequel to The Call to Shakabaz. I am especially interested in their thoughts about how the Four can ultimately make Faracadar safe from Sissrath without killing him.

GOOD BOOK ABOUT AUTISM

David Mazor at Reader to Reader brought my attention to a book about autism in his May newsletter (visit www.readertoreader.org). The book is called "My Brother's Keeper, A Kindergartner's View of Autism." Self-published by Donna Richards, it tells the story of her autistic five-year-old, Justin, from the point of view of her six-year-old (Justin’s brother), Jace. (Visit Donna’s autism resources website at: http://www.mybrotherskeeper.biz/index.html.)

MONDAY COFFEE

I know this is not exactly children’s book-related, more universal coping-with-Monday-morning related, and just a lot of fun. My husband and co-publisher, Ron Reed (A.K.A. the computer tech for our local school district), sent me the following email early one bright morning. Enjoy.

Knowing I had to fake my way through a web presentation this morning, and considering I was too far gone to make myself the mandatory cup-of-Joe before leaving the house, I thought I’d better stop at the Coffee Critic. The glaze from my eyes caught the ultra-alert clerk as she observed me struggling to coordinate my body movements with the door. The door was winning.

“Incoming! A triple Eye Opener! STAT!!!” she shouted at the stunned crew. “Straight! No cream!” Bodies flew into motion, showing the potential of a future ER staff.

“And get that man a GURNEY!!!” she screamed.

“Perhaps a scone?” asked a mousy assistant.

“Exactly! And smother it with marmalade!”

I weakly pointed toward my mouth. She opened a packet of sugar and poured it in. The Eye Opener was slammed on the counter. Waves of coffee lapped over the top as if there was a power boat pulling a skier across the surface of the liquid. The mousy assistant grabbed me by the chin, effortlessly sat me in a chair, and tipped my head back. The clerk took an eye dropper and sucked in two drops of the black stuff and dabbed it into my eyes. That felt good. Then she put one end of a straw into the cup, and the other end in my mouth, and calmly instructed me to sip. Life began to return to my limbs, and ultimately my face.

I managed to pull out my debit card from my pocket, but it fell on the honey-stained carpet. The mousy clerk picked it up and dashed to the cash register.

“Thanks,” I mustered. “The PIN is 7279. I'll get it from you later.”

“You bet, Cap’n. Any time,” she smiled.

I decided I had better not drive in this condition, so I left the rig there and jogged back to the office, with a new glow on my face, and some hi-test pumping through my veins. Bring on the meeting!

RESOURCES

Cheerios has teamed with Eric Carle to launch "Give a Child a Book Week," a program to encourage summer reading. General Mills is extending its five-year-old Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories program, through which it distributes free books to children, into the spring for the first time. A focus of the new initiative is an online children's book trivia contest and donation challenge in conjunction with First Book. "Give a Child a Book Week" will run June 10-16. From now through mid-June, families can go to the First Book Web site and answer a series of trivia questions about children's books. For each correct answer, they can vote for the state they think should receive copies of Carle's The Tiny Seed. The five states with the most votes will each receive 20,000 copies of the book, which will be distributed to children in need through nonprofit groups. Over the past five years, Cheerios has distributed more than 25 million free books, as well as donating over $2 million to First Book

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In the future, I hope The Bookaneer will become an actual newsletter, but for now it’s just a message sent from me to you once a month. If you do not want to remain on my list for The Bookaneer, please send me an email at this address and put in it the exact email address I used to send The Bookaneer to you. I will remove you from the list. I don’t want to be spamming anyone!

The Bookaneer is produced by Amy Wachspress (© 2007). Feel free to reuse any part of this e-zine, but give credit either to Amy or to the original source for all material used. Visit www.wozabooks.com for more information.