Poetry Friday: Animals Eat Sunlight

Poet Heidi Mordhorst of My Juicy Little Universe is hosting Poetry Friday today, and she asked us to write poems about "lighting the dark" by way of celebrating the Winter Solstice with her and her family. Here's my poem:

Animals Eat Sunlight

“Animals eat sunlight,” I tell my students.

They don’t believe me. I explain how light

is caught by the green nets of leaves

and eaten by cows that become fast food

hamburgers and how we eat leaves in salads—

bowls of sunlight adorned with ranch dressing

and croutons. “Sunlight is energy,” I say.

I don’t talk about the way the sun

has been worshipped for thousands of years

as a mighty golden god or the hope after winter.

I don’t tell them how my heart lifts

with each sunrise. How it astonishes me

that day is somehow here again.

I don’t speak of my fierce love for the star

first graders draw in the upper corners

of their pictures with yellow crayons,

that circle blessing the house with its chimney

and family, its row of red flowers

like smaller suns. At recess, I walk outside.

I do not look directly at the sun, deferential,

but I feel it touching my skin. I feel

like a tree, stretching my branches,

my green nets, my everything towards light.

—Kate Coombs, 2012

all rights reserved

For more poems and links, visit the Poetry Friday post at My Juicy Little Universe. Happy Solstice, Happy Holidays, Happy Season of Candlelight and Starlight!

The Runaway Princess in Japanese

I'll confess I had forgotten all about this, so it was a very happy thing to come home from work and find a box full of books: The Runaway Princess is now available in Japanese! (Thank you, FSG and Babel Press.)

What's more, the new illustrator did some fun spot art. This is, of course, the only part of the book I can actually read... Here are a few samples. And if you're in Japan, well, have at it!

Book cover. The back is now the front, of course.

There's a cool little frog icon at the start of each chapter.

Vantor's not happy.

Cam turns into a magic box. Yikes!

Water Sings Blue Launch

Big week for my ocean poems! They started shipping on Wednesday, but are already being reprinted. Today I'm doing a story time/book launch at a very cool indie bookstore in Salt Lake City, The King's English. Trying to think how to present well to 6-year-olds and my elderly aunts, who will turn out in force to support me!

Meanwhile, I've done some interviews around the blog and gotten a few nice reviews, to boot. (There's a little overlap among the interviews, but I tried to say different things when possible!) Here are the links:

Blog Interviews/Reviews

—Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Julie Danielson, also about Hans My Hedgehog)

—Jama's Alphabet Soup (Jama Rattigan)

—Cracking the Covers (Jessica Harrison; click here for a complete transcript)

—Paper Tigers (Marjorie)

Thanks very much to all those who hosted and interviewed me!


Press/Journal Reviews

—Wall Street Journal (short but sweet!)

—Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

—Kirkus Reviews

—Publishers Weekly

Oh, and check out the seashell gallery I put up on my author's website.

Wish me luck today...

Update, 3/25: For those of you wondering why Amazon says "11 to 14 days" to ship WSB, it's because the first printing sold out and Chronicle is reprinting. (This is partly because B&N is going to use the book in a beach book display coming up soon, so they've ordered a lot of copies.)

Update, 3/27: Another starred review! This one's from Booklist. That makes three—hooray!

Update, 4/15: Take a look at this post in which Meilo and I interviewed each other for the Chronicle blog. Great pictures and stories from Meilo!

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.

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.

Springy Giveaway

Hi all! I have given away copies of my MG fantasy books every so often here at Book Aunt, but I haven't given away a copy of my picture book for some time. And it has a spring/rejuvenation theme in there somewhere...

So leave a spring comment in the next (almost) two weeks, by midnight on February 1, and then I'll draw names and send an autographed copy of The Secret-Keeper to the winner. It's an original folktale, which I know very well is a contradiction in terms, but I suspect you know what I mean, right?

Anyway, in your comment, please share either a spring thought or a happy secret, i.e, something nice you haven't mentioned to anyone else yet. It can be something small like "The bush out front is starting to bloom" or something upbeat like "Passed a kid on the street today who gave me such a great grin and a hello as he went by." (Now, I'm in L.A., and I realize spring isn't there quite yet on the East Coast and in certain other parts of the world, but you can look forward to it with your comment!) Of course, you can always recommend a spring-appropriate book as an alternative.

Do be sure you're reachable, whether by your regular link or an e-mail address or by checking back on February 2nd. Thanks!

(And yes, I ship prizes internationally. I hate to leave anyone out.)

Note: Jacket art and illustrations in general were created by the wonderful Heather M. Solomon.

Linda Gerber's Trance Blog Party

This is a linky kind of week for me--now my writing friend Linda Gerber is featuring me on her blog in connection with her book launch. Look for Trance in bookstores this week! Here's the book description:

Ashlyn Greenfield has always known when bad things are going to happen. Each time that familiar tingling at the back of her neck begins, she knows what's to come--a trance. She's pulled in, blindsided, an unwilling witness to a horrible upcoming event. But she's never been able to stop it--not even when the vision was of her mother's fatal car accident. When soulful Jake enters Ashlyn's life, she begins having trances about another car accident. And as her trances escalate, one thing becomes clear: it's up to her to save Jake from near-certain death.

So, as part of Linda's blog party to celebrate the publication of Trance, she's running the numbers (of a fortune-telling sort) for various guest authors, and I'm one of them. Link through to read my magic numbers and my response, tying them back to my writing.

And yes, I'll review Trance here in a few weeks, after I get my copy! In case you aren't familiar with Linda's work, she's the author of the "Death By" YA mystery/suspense novels: Death by Bikini, Death by Denim, and Death by Latte.

Impossible Quests

Okay, I really need to work on revising my current work in progress, an MG fantasy, so I will not be posting any reviews this week. I will tell you about a cool project I'm involved in, though: I have a story included in the upcoming fantasy anthology for grown-ups, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXV, edited by Elisabeth Waters. The story is called "Impossible Quests," and it's about a prince and a princess (both of the warrior variety!) who meet up after being sent on quests by people who are really hoping they won't come back. It's essentially tongue-in-cheek, like my Runaway books only more so.

Anyway, author (and fellow contributor) Jonathan Moeller posted an interview with me on his blog yesterday, the first in a series of interviews with contributors to the anthology that will be appearing every Thursday for the next few months. There's a very brief excerpt from the story if you want to take a look.

I don't see the anthology on Amazon yet, which is weird, since all of the previous volumes are there. I'm guessing it will show up shortly. Meanwhile, here's the web address for the publisher, Norilana Books. The anthology will be out on November 15, 2010.

Note: Book cover image shown is from the ARC and is subject to change.

Update: I checked with the editor, and she says the book won't be on Amazon till the publication date. In the meantime, you can check out the list of contributors and stories at this page on the Marion Zimmer Bradley site.

Run Away with a Book - Summer Giveaway

Yes, I do write books! For this giveaway, I will send the winner copies of ALL THREE of my published books. (Next year I'll have two more out.) That would be an original folktale called The Secret-Keeper (picture book), a comic middle grade fantasy called The Runaway Princess, and a sequel called The Runaway Dragon.

To enter, leave a comment listing some of the books you've been wanting to read this summer, whether they just came out, are about to come out, or you missed them somehow and want to play catch-up. I will do a drawing from the comments after the giveaway closes at midnight on June 25th.

And by the way, it's not just the kids who get excited about the school year ending: we teachers are counting the minutes! The beach is calling... Beach pictured is in Terasawa, Japan, but I guess I can settle for Santa Monica or Leo Carillo, since I live in L.A.

(Of course, summer school is calling, too. I'm trying not to listen.)

Books I am looking forward to reading? There are sooo many, but here are just a few: Magic Below Stairs by Caroline Stevermer (out this week!), a picture book by Candace Ryan called Animal House (July), and Scumble by Ingrid Law (August).

Please remember to check back, or leave your contact info in your comment.

Update #1: Chachic wants to know if this giveaway is international. Yep! It's a global community of readers, and I can't bear to leave you out just because I might have to ship a package to Ireland or the Philippines.

Update #2: This giveaway is now over. The winner will be announced shortly.

Happy Day!

I woke up this morning feeling like it was Christmas. Why? Because my new book comes out today! The funny thing is, it's mostly an ordinary day--no tickertape parade, no lavish party, not even a singing telegram or a bouquet of roses like after a ballerina performs.

I think I'll just stop by the bookstore and visit my baby and smile like a lunatic for a few minutes...

Then I'll come home and work on revising my next book.

Update: Author KC Dyer has her character Darby interview my character Meg here. I will be interviewed on The Enchanted Inkpot on September 9.

Book Trailer for The Runaway Dragon

While the purpose of this blog is to review children’s books and riff about the world of children’s literature, I will share any key news from the writing side of things. In this case, I am very excited to have created my first book trailer! It’s for The Runaway Dragon, a funny fantasy due out on September 1, 2009, from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book is a sequel to The Runaway Princess, an ALA Notable Book in 2007.

Here’s the YouTube link for the book trailer.