Hans, the Blog Tour

Yep, I'm doing a blog tour for my new picture book, Hans My Hedgehog, pub date right this very day, January 24th. (Woo-hoo!)

I am very pleased that Hans has garnered four great reviews, two of them starred (Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly). In addition, it was featured in a New York Times Book Review, along with two other prickly books.

Thanks very much to all my kind bloggy hosts. I will list the tour schedule for you here, adding the specific links as they come in. That way, you can learn more about the retelling of Grimms' fairy tales in general and my work in particular than you ever thought possible, all in about a week!

Monday, 1/23—Interview by Sybil Nelson at The Enchanted Inkpot

Tuesday, 1/24—Review and interview by Heidi Grange at Geo Librarian

Wednesday, 1/25—Review and giveaway by Linda Gerber at her cool YA author's blog; review by Jennifer Wharton at Jean Little Library

Thursday, 1/26—Interview by Jennifer Wharton at Jean Little Library

Friday, 1/27—Review by Anamaria Anderson at Books Together Blog

Monday, 1/30—Interview by Miranda Paul at her author's blog

Tuesday, 1/31—Author Anastasia Suen spotlights Hans and asks just 3 questions at Booktalking


Thanks also to Charlotte's Library for her post about Google Analytics and hedgehogs, including Hans. Check out the darling baby hedgehog photos!

Here's an intriguing tidbit about urchins and hedgehogs at Children's Literature Network, Snipp Snapp Snute by Lise Lunge-Larsen. She likes the look of Hans.

This post at VoVatia is from last August, but it has some excellent additional "Hans My Hedgehog" art and insights, not to mention a very nice comment from Amy about my then-upcoming book. (Link through if only to see Maurice Sendak's version of Hans.)

A note on Hans's size, which the VoVatia post questions: One of my editors did point out that Hans had to be small enough to ride a rooster, but large enough to dance with a princess. My response was that the story was originally told orally, without illustrations. I'm guessing the size issue slipped right past most of those long-ago listeners! (Except for some smart-aleck kid. There's always one in every village.) I also said, with rather callous accuracy, that the illustrator was going to have to use perspective and other art tricks to make Hans's size work in the book. And he did!

Note: Back to our regular programming this Saturday with picture book reviews.

Oh, the Thrill!

Just so you know, the #1 thrill moment when you're an author is when your author copies arrive from the publisher and you open the box, then turn those pages for the first time. I had a great week: both of my sets of author's copies came at once! That would be Hans My Hedgehog, due out 1/24, and Water Sings Blue, due out mid-March.

I took some photos so you can get a feel for what it's like. (Pride, joy, bliss, disbelief...)

First I'll show you the box of Hans books, above right.


Here's one of the spreads, with Hans up in a tree playing his fiddle. That's King #1 down at the bottom, yelling.









I really like the spot art.












The ocean poems came Fed Ex. I think my favorite spread is the jellyfish.










But the title page is also really pretty.










So yes, I've been semi-delirious the last couple of days. (I won't show you a photo of that.)

Oh, and the #2 thrill? When a kid likes your book and tells you so, or sends you an illustrated fan letter. Then again, maybe I should call it a tie!

Website News

My author's website is nothing if not sprawling, and it has just grown again: I've put up pages for my upcoming picture book, Hans My Hedgehog, and for my upcoming poetry collection, Water Sings Blue. Thanks to my website designer, Barb Aeschliman of Jaleroro Web Designs, for all her hard work!

Check out the Hans book page and a page of hedgehog facts, plus the Water Sings Blue book page (with the title poem) and a seashell gallery (from my own collection).

I'm especially happy because Hans My Hedgehog has garnered two starred reviews in the past few weeks, one from Kirkus and one from Publisher's Weekly. Of course, a lot of the credit goes to illustrator John Nickle, whose artwork is just amazing!

Happy sigh...

Note: I am also exploring the wonders of Twitter, if you'd like to check it out. My username is KateCoombs13.

Book Update and Awesome Man

I have some fun news about my own books, not to mention a review of Michael Chabon's picture book, which turns out to be related.

First, I'll just remind you that my retelling of the Grimms' tale, Hans-My-Hedgehog, will be out on January 24 and is already up on Amazon. John Nickle is the very talented illustrator. At the moment, my website designer Barb Aeschliman and I are busy working on a hedgehog page (much like my frog and squirrel pages).

Second, I now have cover art for my collection of ocean poems, Water Sings Blue, which is also up on Amazon and has a pub date of March 14. Isn't it pretty? Meilo So is the illustrator, and her interior artwork just knocks my socks off. Interesting note: Meilo lives in the Shetland Isles. (I discovered this while trying to FedEx galleys when they wound up at my house instead of hers!)

Third, I have had a picture book manuscript waiting for an illustrator at Atheneum for quite a while now, and voilà! The Tooth Fairy Wars will be illustrated by Jake Parker. Check out his website. You can expect this book in late 2013 or early 2014.

Jake is known for his comic series, Missile Mouse, and for his work on animated films like Horton Hears a Who and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. His most recent project is Michael Chabon's picture book, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, which came out on September 6.

In case you haven't seen it, this book tracks the adventures of a superhero and his sidekick, Moskowitz the Awesome Dog. Here's how the story begins:

Hi! I'm a superhero. My name is Awesome Man.

I have a cape as red as a rocket, a mask as black as midnight, and a stylin' letter A on my chest.

I'm just basically awesome.

The superhero goes on to list some of his superpowers (shown in application in the illustrations) and to recount his adventures with villains such as mutant talking Jell-O from Beyond the Stars, Professor Von Evil, and the hero's arch nemesis, the Flaming Eyeball.

But our superhero has his down moments, and we see him returning to his Fortress of Awesome under the Arctic Ocean to try and get a grip.

Parker's comic style art suits this superhero story. He even uses dot backgrounds like old newsprint comics in some of the early spreads. I like the way his fortress, while under the sea and the eye of a passing whale, is a suburban home beneath a set of glass domes. Despite the smoothness of the rendering, Parker can show his square-jawed hero sulking as well as preening.

As for Chabon's text, it's a tad tongue-in-cheek—watch, for example, for a supervillain named Sister Sinister. The wording has a nice casual tone, as in this excerpt:

I fly west. I fly east. I fly eight times around the earth and all the way to the heart of the sun. (The Flaming Eyeball hangs out there sometimes.)

Chabon is, of course, best known for his adult fiction, e.g., Pulitzer Prize winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but he has also written a YA (upper MG) novel, Summerland, which I quite liked.

I noticed that some Amazon customer reviewers were complaining that Chabon's new picture book doesn't have a stronger plot, but I think they're missing the point: this one is intended to be a profile of the superhero, not Die Hard 3. (If you want more plot in a picture book along these lines, try Barnett and Santat's Oh No! Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World.) I will say, the ending of The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man isn't quite my cup of tea, but young readers will probably like it. For the kid who's a bit too young for Vordak the Incomprehensible, Chabon's new book may be just right.

Hans on Amazon

I'm so excited! My next book is already up on Amazon and available for pre-order, even though the publication date is January 2012. Link through to see the cover art.

Hans My Hedgehog is a retelling of a Grimms' fairy tale, illustrated by the marvelous John Nickle. It's the story of a farmer and his wife who so long for a baby that the farmer exclaims he wants a son even if it's half hedgehog—and that's exactly what happens. Hans grows up to be a fiddler, and he has a particular knack with pigs. Lonely because none of the village girls will talk to him, he goes off to live in the magical forest. There he helps two kings in return for two promises...

Anyway, it's very fun to see Hans out in the world already. (I have the page proofs, and the art is just wonderful. Yay, John!)

4/13/11 update: Someone's trying to sell a "used" copy of Hans (galleys?) for $1462.32. Yikes!