Writers and Illustrators and Dinosaurs: Donna Jo Napoli

Donna Jo Napoli is the author of numerous books for young readers, including (most recently) the TREASURY OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY (National Geographic 2011), and LIGHTS ON THE NILE (HarperCollins 2011).   Her books have received countless awards and a veritable globular cluster of stars.  You should read them all.

She lives outside Philadelphia, holds degrees in mathematics and linguistics, and is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College. 

Above, she poses with her grandchildren, Hayden (Triceratops) and Aspen (dragon).

CHRONAL ENGINE interview at EXPLORATIONS

Today, I'm interviewed about Dinosaurs, Writing, and Research, by Sarah Blake Johnson at her Explorations blog:  Click here to read.

And see my Writers and Illustrators and Dinosaurs post with Sarah here.

Also, a reminder: CHRONAL ENGINE releases on March 20!  The Release Party for CHRONAL ENGINE is at BookPeople at 603 N. Lamar on March 24, at 2 PM!

Auction of signed CHRONAL ENGINE at Authors for Henryville

Go check out the Authors for Henryville blog! 

CHRONAL ENGINE is one of the books being offered for auction as part of a fund-raiser to help those who suffered from the tornadoes earlier this month.

Click here to bid on CHRONAL ENGINE.  This round of the auction goes until 9 PM Eastern time, on March 15. (Beware the Ides!)

For other authors on the current auction, click here.

CHRONAL ENGINE interview at "Writing with a Broken Tusk"

Uma Krishnaswami posted part 1 of a discussion we had over at her blog, "Writing with a Broken Tusk." 

Uma is the author of a number of picture books, as well as the hilarious middle grade novel, THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING.

Writers and Illustrators and Dinosaurs: Elizabeth Dulemba

Graphic designer Elizabeth O. Dulemba is the author of more than a dozen picture books, the most recent being THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS IN GEORGIA (Sterling 2010).

She is the illustrator coordinator for the Southern Breeze chapter of the SCBWI; a Board Member of the Georgia Center for the Book; and has taught illustration at the University of Georgia.  She blogs at Elizabeth O. Dulemba and runs Coloring Page Tuesdays.

Above, she poses with a googly-eyed hadrosaur (sp. indet.) at a school in Augusta.

Tohoku Earthquake books: TOMO and MELTDOWN

One year ago tomorrow, one of the five largest earthquakes ever recorded struck Japan.  Almost sixteen thousand were killed and thousands more were injured or missing.  More than one hundred thousand buildings were destroyed.

TOMO, ed. by Holly Thompson (Stone Bridge Press, March 10, 2012)(12+) is a young adult collection of stories by authors from around the world, all of whom have some connection to Japan.  Per the flap copy, the book offers "[t]ales of friendship, mystery, love, ghosts, magic, sci-fi and history [that] will take readers to Japan past and present and to Japanese communities abroad."  A portion of the proceeds will go to long-term relief efforts for teens in Tohoku.

Edited and with a Foreword by Holly Thompson, TOMO contributing authors and artists include Andrew Fukuda (Crossing), Liza Dalby (The Tale of Murasaki), Tak Toyoshima (Secret Asian Man syndicated comic), Alan Gratz (The Brooklyn Nine), Wendy Nelson Tokunaga (Love in Translation), Deni Y. Béchard (Vandal Love), Debbie Ridpath Ohi (illustrator of I’m Bored), Graham Salisbury (Under the Blood-Red Sun), Naoko Awa (The Fox’s Window and Other Stories), Suzanne Kamata (The Beautiful One Has Come) and Shogo Oketani (J-Boys), among others.

MELTDOWN: THE NUCLEAR DISASTER IN JAPAN AND OUR ENERGY FUTURE, by Fred Bortz (Lerner 2012)(ages 10+).  Physicist Bortz offers an account of the earthquake, its effects on the  nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and efforts at remediation.  Additional sections discuss the context of nuclear power and its place in the production of electricity.

Katniss and Ender...

Next month, when THE HUNGER GAMES movie releases, a group of us from the Austin youth literature community are planning to go see it at the decadently luxurious Capitol IPIC Theatre in The Domain (Yes, we're being ironic).  Anyway, in anticipation thereof, I decided to actually read the book.  I am not going to give it a full review here, but will say that I read it in one day, enjoyed it, and look forward to diving into the next two. :-).

I did want to observe, however, that, given all the hand-wringing I've seen about it from some quarters, it was considerably tamer than I was expecting. It reminded me somewhat of ENDER'S GAME, but less brutal, even though there is a higher (human) body count.

I'm not sure why.  Perhaps because ENDER'S GAME is more science fiction-y and THE HUNGER GAMES feels more fantasy-ish (at least to me).  Or perhaps it's because ENDER'S GAME wasn't originally written "for" a teen audience.  Or, I could just be getting old...:-).

No dinosaurs, however, were harmed in either book.    

Writers and Illustrators and Dinosaurs: Laura Jennings

Laura Jennings grew up in Kempner, Texas, and studied fine art at Central Texas Community College and Texas Tech University, as well as animation at Austin Community College.  She has developed characters for the video game Shard and is a member of Austin SCBWI.

Laura had some terrific dinosaur pieces on display at the Austin SCBWI's annual conference last month.  Above, she poses with some of the creations. Another appears below.  You can check out more of them at her gallery here.

How to be a Children's Book Illustrator (Mark Mitchell's blog) has an interview with Laura here and Laura's main deviantArt page and blog are here.

FAT KID RULES THE WORLD movie - World Premiere at SXSW!

The world premiere of the movie based on K.L. Going's Printz Honor winning novel, FAT KID RULES THE WORLD (Putnam 2003), will be this Friday during the SXSW Film Festival.  There will be additional showings throughout the week. 

Check out the official schedule here.

Also, Kelly will be signing the book at the Barnes & Noble booth at 2 PM on Monday, March 12.  Be sure to pick up a copy!

Cynthia has a Story Behind the Story interview with Kelly on the novel here.  Check out Kelly's blog and her account of the first private screening here.

For the record, Cynthia and I "met" Kelly when she worked as an assistant to our agent, Ginger Knowlton.  We've never met in person, but were thrilled when (a) we found out she was writing and (b) won a Printz Honor for FAT KID! (And her other books are great, too).

INVISIBLE SUN

INVISIBLE SUN, by David Macinnis Gill (Greenwillow, April 2012)(ages 14+).  Former Regulators, now outlaws, Durango and Vienne are on a quest to retrieve data about Durango's past and the still-percolating plots his father left behind.  But the mission goes awry when Vienne is captured by agents of the insurgent mastermind Mr. Lyme. 

Can Durango get her back or is he doomed to lost both her and all of Mars?

INVISIBLE SUN is a riveting and action-packed companion to BLACK HOLE SUN, revisiting a Mars that is red in tooth and claw.  With sardonic wit and intricate plotting, Gill brings a dystopian world to life.  Readers will eagerly await the conclusion to the trilogy.