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 »
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 »
We recently paid a visit to the LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington, which has the earliest of cars to the latest. I even saw the car I really, really wanted in high school: a Carmen Ghia (the car I actually got? A 66 Rambler Classic. Salmon pink). The visit reminded me of the elegant… Read more »
A Washington D.C. newsboy plays a big role in Audacity Jones to the Rescue. The character, Juice Johnson, is about 12 years old. But during the time period of the story (1910), there were newsboys as young as 5! One “juicy” fact that I tried to work into the book, but just couldn’t, was that… Read more »
Thirty four years ago, this charmer entered our lives and now she’s the mom to two darling daughters herself! Her first grade passion for chapter books led me to write the manuscript that became my first published book. She is the epitome of kind and brave, and, thankfully, she’s forgiven me for all the dorky… Read more »