Get out your party hats and horns! Today is the book birthday of the second of the Audacity Jones’ books: Audacity Jones Steals The Show (Scholastic). In her first adventure (Audacity Jones to the Rescue), Audie defeats bad guys who want to kidnap President Taft’s niece. In this book she not only meets Harry Houdini, shesaves a… Read more »
My newest book, Liberty (it publishes in a few short days, on October 11), is set in New Orleans during WWII. I adore this city, which has the kindest citizens in the world. But in the 1940s, New Orleans shared similarities with other southern cities. My main character, Fish Elliott, has a pesky neighbor named… Read more »
On one of my trips to New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina, I stumbled on an art collective displaying the work of local artists. One piece I fell in love with was, fortunately, affordable so it found its way into my suitcase. Beside the fact of being a sucker for anything with words, when I learned… Read more »
The newest book in the WWII Dog series that I’m writing for Scholastic is Liberty (due out October 11) , which features Fish Elliott who had been stricken by polio at about age five. In 1952, one of the worst years for polio here in the states, nearly 58,000 people were afflicted. Sadly, Salk’s polio vaccine… Read more »
I may look sweet and innocent but I have an evil plan: I want to turn kids into ravenous readers of historical fiction. And, serendipitously, I’ve discovered one way to be successful in this scheme. Write about dogs! On October 11, the third book in the World War Two Dogs series (Scholastic) will be published. Liberty… Read more »
Though Erin Hagar and I have never met, I know we would be fast friends over our shared love of history. When I learned about her new book, Doing Her Bit: A Story about the Woman’s Land Army of America, illustrated by Jen Hill, (Charlesbridge), I begged her to be a guest for Friend Friday. Lucky us!… Read more »
This will be my last throwback to 1910 (at least for awhile; the sequel is due out in January 2017). It’s been fun providing some historical context for the first book in the Audacity Jones series, Audacity Jones to the Rescue. I’ve shared about newsboys, cars and voting rights. I’m closing with something light. I so… Read more »
Audacity was 11 in 1910. But had she been 21, she still wouldn’t have been able to vote for President Taft, or any other candidate, due to being female (unless she lived someplace like my home state of Washington, where women got the vote November 8, 1910). The 19th Amendment was ratified on this very day, August… Read more »
It was horrifying to Audacity Jones (and no doubt to you!) that President Taft’s favorite soup was Terrapin Soup, aka Turtle Soup. And Mrs. Taft really did hire English cooks to prepare it, just as is described in Audacity Jones to the Rescue. The recipe I “used” in the book came from this old tome… Read more »
Did you know that from 1801 to 1932, every New Year’s Day the president’s house/White House was opened to the public for a grand reception? People waited for hours in line to shake the current president’s hand. The 101-year-old tradition ended with Herbert Hoover. Here is a photo from 1911, one year after Audacity Jones… Read more »