Ohioana 2017

Those of you who have been following me for a long time know that one of my favorite things about being an author is attending book festivals. And this past Saturday I participated in the 11th Annual Ohioana Book Festival.

I was super excited to catch up with author friends. One of those friends, Lisa Amstutz, is a phenomenal nature author. Her latest book is all about gardening.

There was my friend, Julie Anne Lindsey, who writes mysteries under the pen name Julie Chase. How can you resist someone who writes mysteries involving cats?

 
There was my friend, Tricia Springstub, who writes for children.

 
And there was my friend, Tara Tyler, science fiction/fantasy writer.

 I also met several new friends. Illustrator Tim Bowers who illustrated four books I have read, reviewed, and enjoyed plus numerous others.

 

Author/Illustrator Adam Watkins whose bot books I can't wait to read.

Author/Illustrator Lindsay Ward who shared the back story of her latest book Brobarians. Who knew inspiration could come from Connan the Barbarian and your husband and his brother? She also created this year's Ohiana poster.

 

Cartoonist Steve Harpster who has some awesome how to draw books for kids.

Author/Illustrator Bill Cotter who is genius because he knows that kids always want to do what you tell them not to do.
 

Illustrator Joe Sutphin who illustrates for James Patterson and Sheila Grau for a start.

And author Marilyn Sadler who has sooo many interesting books including a new math inspired series that she co-authors.

So as you can well guess, I didn't have time to read and review any new books, but after introducing you to my friends from Ohioana, I'm pretty sure I've given you some great books to check out!

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

It's Garden Time!

It's that time of year again where excitement over our yearly garden gently wraps each of us with a blanket of anticipation. My husband tills up the clean, fresh dirt in our raised beds, I search for the right plants, and Emily helps plant, weed, and water. 

Just this past weekend, I purchased two beefsteak tomato plants.  Now I just need to find the Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes we plant, decide if we want onions and lettuce, and make my rounds at the Amish garden stands to find flowers for my flower beds.

As is my custom, I made a trip to the library to gather a large stack of books for reading and reviewing and decided a couple of them should be about gardens. The first book I read was The Vegetables Go To Bed by Christopher King. It's an older book, but if you can't find it at your local library, there are used copies available at Amazon.

Told in rhyme, The Vegetables Go To Bed, tells the tale of vegetables in the garden who are mostly reluctant to go to sleep for the night. The illustrations are what make this book truly spectacular. The first letter on each page is a special letter with a small picture of some kind and the vegetables have gentle faces and hands giving them the appearance of being alive. Very subtly, the story of the vegetables getting ready for bed and growing while they sleep, parallels to the way children are reluctant for bed and grow while they sleep. I think this would be a great book for children five to eight.

The next book I read was Cecil's Garden by Holly Keller. This is also an older book, but well worth hunting down. Of the two, this book was  my favorite. Cecil, his brother, and his sister set out to plant a garden but it is only big enough to hold five rows of vegetables. Unfortunately, they have six packets of seeds. Since they can't decide which seeds to eliminate they end up going into the house without planting anything. Cecil decides to go for a walk and finds both his mouse friends and his mole friends arguing amongst themselves as well. Cecil decides he just doesn't like arguing and he is going home to plant his garden. The creative solution he comes up with is very exciting and well worth finding out about.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, and my soon to be released sequel, Return To Fern Valley, coming summer of 2014! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.