Post Teaser and Nice News...

Okay, I'm back from Seattle, full of turkey, and playing catch-up. I have started doing a sort of complicated post that's going to be book picks for your Christmas shopping... I hope to have it up mid-week, but we'll see how it goes!

In the meantime, I have some good news about my poetry collection, Water Sings Blue: it has made Kirkus's list of the Best Children's Books of 2012. There are 100 books total in fiction, nonfiction, picture book, MG, YA, graphic novel, early reader, and poetry, so of course I'm in very good company.

Here's the Kirkus list as a starting point for your holiday book shopping.

Or there's the New York Times list of the best illustrated books of the year.

Not to mention the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children's Literature.

You might also want to check out the Cybils nominations if you haven't already. I'm especially big on the poetry list, and not just because Water Sings Blue shows up there, too. It's simply that I feel people often don't know where to find good poetry for children. You certainly can't count on B&N to carry a full selection of the latest poetry collections! So this list makes a good place to browse.

Now, if you're looking for classics to buy for your children, grandchildren, and students, try USA Today's 100 Greatest Books for Kids list. Better still, here's Betsy Bird's Top 100 Chapter Books from her poll earlier this year at Fuse #8, along with her Top 100 Picture Books.

More soon, I promise!

Note: The "Blue Whale" spread below is an example of Meilo So's truly gorgeous artwork for Water Sings Blue.

Update 12-17-12: Wow! Water Sings Blue made a Wall Street Journal best 10 books of the year list!

Meilo So News

Nice news for Meilo So—and for me! Her artwork for Water Sings Blue has been chosen to be featured in the 2012 Society of Illustrators Original Art Show. Take a look at one of her illustrations and you'll see why...

Water Sings Blue and the Shetland Islands

Okay, so I just have to tell you: my poetry collection, Water Sings Blue, has gotten two starred reviews so far, from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly! (And they gave two starred reviews to Hans My Hedgehog a month or so ago).

If you go to Water Sings Blue illustrator Meilo So's new website, it currently features our book with the starred reviews. You can also explore more of her amazing artwork.

Alas, my envy of Meilo has reached epic proportions. She lives in the Shetland Islands. Where they have puffins! And pink flowers! And little white cottages! While, sadly, living across the Atlantic makes Meilo ineligible for the Caldecott (Betsy Bird and I both think she'd be up for it, though I'm slightly more biased), it's still an incredibly pretty place to live. So I will give you a glimpse of what the rest of us non-Shetlanders are missing out on, even if we're not ponies. Um, you know what I mean.

See? SEE? I think I should go on a book tour to the Shetland Islands. I'm pretty sure the fishermen (fisherpeople) would love to hear me read poems from the book. The puffins might enjoy it, too. (Which reminds me, you really should read Eleanor Farjeon's The Silver Curlew, a classic fairy tale retelling with puffins in it.) In the meantime, I'll just have to dream. And try to control my envy, which is as green as the Shetland Islands.

Update: Meilo and I interviewed each other for the Chronicle blog. Check out Meilo's photos and stories about her island home.

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.