My Favorite Picture Book Blogfest

I'm deviating from my normal Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule this week for two reasons. First, I am taking a few days off, enjoying the Alps and a bit of peace and quiet (something I don't often get with two boys) before taking part in an SCBWI revision workshop on Saturday.

Second, one of my critique partners, Megan K. Bickel (The Write-At-Home Mom), is hosting the My Favorite Picture Book Blogfest today. Even if you don't write picture books, you've read them. You may read them to your kids every night, or at the very least you remember important ones from your childhood.

My absolute, all-time favorite picture book is The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss.

Why do I love it? I love the way the words roll off my tongue to reveal the way our actions impact the world around us. Little things we don't stop to consider.

"Look Lorax," I said. "There's no cause for alarm.
I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm...."

And yet our actions build to have an ever-greater impact on the world around us. The Lorax creates a fictional account of something that affects every single person every single day.

I read this book to my students (I teach at the university level) because the message is so profound. We take just a little more each day, whittling away at the resources nature has provided us, and the slow destruction is difficult to see.

And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!

That's what happened to a thriving society on Easter Island, and now we know them only by giant stone heads, the Easter Island equivalent of gigantic thneed factories.

Dr. Seuss was way ahead of the curve in terms of environmentalism. He published The Lorax in 1971.

What about you? What was (or is) your favorite picture book?

And head on over to The Write-At-Home Mom to see the other entries. (I'll do that when I get home on Sunday.)

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Multitasking

Just like every other mom on the planet, I multitask. Of course, I can only actually DO two or three things at a time (dust and search for lost legos and try to follow my son's description of the dragon he saw fighting a ninja tiger. He saw it. Really.). Ask me to do more than that, and my carefully balanced stack of tasks topples to the ground. And I have to scramble to pick up the pieces.

Why do I share this? Because I've been dealing with sick kids, a traveling husband, and school closings while trying to finish my WIP for an upcoming revision workshop. They've put me way over my multitasking limit, and I forgot to schedule someone for today's Marketing Monday.

But if you're looking for some great marketing advice, check out Raquel Byrnes's tips on putting together a media kit. Next week, we'll be back to the regularly scheduled program. 

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A word about prizes...

Wow! Thanks to everyone who participated in the Super-Snooper Blogfest! The entries were great, and it was a lot of fun to figure out the people behind the stuff.  And since we had 39 people participate, I have to come up with a second prize, so I have no prize announcements today. (Sorry.)

In fact, it might take a little while before I know exactly what the second prize will be. But I'm working on something. It'll be great, and I'll be sure to let the winners know as soon as I've got it all worked out.

If you didn't catch the entries for the blogfest, check them out here. They're lots of fun!

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Super-Snooper Blogfest

Today is the Super-Snooper Blogfest!. Instructions are to describe a setting that tells us something about your character's personality. Characters can be of any age, living in any time or place. But don't tell us about the character, tell us about his or her stuff. We'll get to know the character from what you write.

My entry:

Sticky notes covered every millimeter of the computer monitor frame. Most were yellow, a few pink or green, each with an important note on it: events, dates, inspirational sayings and little bits of wisdom. Every two seconds, the screen saver flashed a new photo. The same face appeared in each, always with at least one other person: at parties, on the beach, in the mountains, under the wide tent of a hang-glider. Many of the same faces filled frames that littered the nearby bookshelves, obscuring the few books that lay jumbled in a heap. Swim goggles hung from the corner of one frame, a snowboard leaned against the bookshelves, and the harness of the latest bungee jump spilled out of the bottom-most shelf.

What kind of personality do you imagine this character has? What part of their stuff gave you that impression?

As I mentioned, I have a copy of Sam Gosling's Snoop: what your stuff says about you to give away. Each participant will get one entry in the drawing, and the randomly-selected winner wins the book! Check back on Friday to see if you're the lucky winner, and go see what others wrote!

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