Just now I opened a puffy envelope from McMillan, the company that now owns my publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Inside, amazing, four copies of Strong at the Heart in Japanese! This edition has two new interviews, one at the beginning and one at the end of the book. Each is with a young Japanese [...]
This weekend I'll be headed for Davis, California, to receive the Friend of the Child Award from young child abuse advocates. The Courageous Kids' Network is a group of young adults who speak out about their experiences being placed with abusive parents by family courts. Now that they are out of abuseve homes, they are [...]
I just heard from Mindy, one of the Cybils organizers, about a new interactive book site for children's and young adult literature. And Strong at the Heart has its own page there. At the Tandem Library Books site you can bring up four separate lists of recommended book in Texas state reading programs. (Strong at [...]
This just in: I just opened a copy of the March issue of Play Therapy, a magazine for mental health professionals who work with children and teens. There, on page 32, is a great review of Strong at the Heart in which a therapist describes using the book with her young teen clients. With the [...]
Bloggers who are fans of children's YA literature have started a new award, the Cybil. Check it out and nominate your favorite book from the past year. I am homored to serve on the Middle Grade/YA Non-fiction award committee. And, no, Strong at the Heart is not eligible. Closer to home, I'm speaking at the Westhaven Center for the Arts, in Westhaven, California, this Saturday from 3-4:30 p.m...
Check this out: Cynthia Smith just posted an interview with me on her weblog Cynsations. Cynthia is a wonderful interviewer. She asked the kind of questions that brought out stories about the book, the writing of it, and the responses of individual readers. If you...
I just learned that Strong at the Heart has been listed in the 2006 "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People." This is a publication of the National Council for the Social Studies and goes to social studies teachers all over the US...On Saturday, June 17th, I'll be the featured speaker the Humboldt County Library Authors in the Afternoon series...
Strong at the Heart received three honors this spring. Now they are all up with links. Every year the Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College selects a short list of recommended books for teens. Strong is one of the books honored this year. The committee was founded over ninety years ago to help parents, librarians and teachers select good books for young readers. Strong at the Heart was also chosen for the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age...
Well, this is cool. I have an email from FSG, my publisher, that Strong at the Heart was chosen as a Skipping Stone Honor Book. Every year this multicultural children's magazine choses roughly ten books to honor and Strong at the Heart is one of them this year. The links aren't up yet, and I don't have more information, but when I do I'll post it here. Yesterday's event in Cambridge went so well despite the PowerPoint projector not . . .
For those of you who've asked for more about the Vagina Warrior Awards, here is part of Sarah Page's introductory remarks from Tuesday night: "Welcome and thank you all for coming. Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, writes, 'Being a Vagina Warrior means developing the spiritual muscle to enter and survive the grief that violence brings and, in that dangerous space of stunned unknowing, inviting the deeper wisdom'. . .