Cars and Buses, Oh My!

This past week has been a bit crazy with finishing up school and getting ready to go on a trip to Niagara Falls with my sister and Emily. I mowed both our lawn and my mother-in-laws. I shopped for sun screen and road trip snacks. And I made enough food to feed an army even though only my husband will be home.

And while I was in the midst of all this preparing for our car trip I happened to see a twitter post by fellow author Josh Funk about a female illustrator/writer he wanted to promote. His exact words were, "Due to #Caldecott Gender Inequity, every day I'm posting an awesome picture book, published this century, illustrated by a woman. For Day #81, meet the CAT ON THE BUS by @StudioAram." Now @StudioAram happens to be Aram Kim, and the resaon I know this is because I had just picked up her book, Cat On The Bus at my local library.

So I was super excited to read this almost wordless picture book about a homeless kitty who rides the bus and finds a forever home. This touched a cord with me not only because the illustrations are so adorable, but because we have three cats, two of which are rescue cats. 

But since many of my readers are dog lovers, I also read The Very, Very, Very, Long Dog by Julia Patton. It is the story of Bartelby, an extremely long dog, whose friends take him on walks, that end in chaos caused by his extremely long back end. Never fear, however, because his friends come up with a fun way to help Bartelby avoid calamities.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week, 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 if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

Awards and A Lit Fest

This past week was Emily's final day and there was an award ceremony at the school that we do our independent studies through. As is customary, each year as the sixth graders leave elementary behind for jr. high, the teachers choose a student of the year for each category they attend on their bi/monthly Fridays. This year, Emily won Art Student of the Year. She also won a superior ribbon for her poetry entry in the ACSI Writing Contest. Needless to say, that girl makes me smile.

I wasn't able to stay for the Field Day after, as I normally do, because I had to leave for New York and the Millbrook Literary Festival. The event was a bit on the slow side, and I didn't sell much; but I had a fabulous time catching up with my good friends the Mojicas. Victor writes and illustrates his own works as well as illustrating for Barbara who writes a history series. Together they make a formidable team. There latest collaboration is their book about Ford's Theater.

I also met and chatted with some Face Book friends I hadn't personally met yet. There was the oh so kind and charming Susanna Leonard Hill, author and host of writing contests, and her table mate the fantastic Nancy Furstinger. I also made some new friends like the talented Karen Kaufman Orloff and the talented illustrator/author Isabelle Garbani whose book, The Secret Elephant, is too, too funny. And I was delighted to be sandwiched between the eloquent David Cundy and the charismatic David Neilsen. David Neilsen charmingly shared with me the back story of how Chris Grabenstein helped him get published. So if his work is good enough to be promoted by Chris, I'm pretty sure you want to check it out. Just listening to the spiel, for his soon to be released book, made me wish I had more time to read chapter books.

Nancy, Me, and Susanna

Me and Karen

Isabelle Garbani

David Neilsen

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.

Road Trippin'

I know this week's post usually comes out first thing Monday morning, but Emily and I didn't get back from our recent road trip until late Sunday evening. So here I sit scrambling to compose all of my thoughts about our visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Central Massachusetts Children's Book Festival.

This year I decided instead of just going straight to the book festival, we would take two extra days and visit the delicious town of Hershey. We stayed at the Hershey Lodge which was quite nice and boasted an indoor mini water park. The water area is really geared more toward children six and under, but Emily found just enough fun stuff to entertain herself. The beds in the room, however, were a bit on the hard side. Emily flopped down on one and it did not bounce at all. Speaking of bouncing on the bed, one of the books in my review pile was called There's a Bison Bouncing on the Bed! This book was a bundle of rhyming fun which started with Bison bouncing on the bed. Friends started joining Bison on the bed and the inevitable happened__ the bed broke. The surprising part was that it wasn't Bison's bed and someone was in the bed while Bison and his friends bounced. I don't want to spoil the fun, so you will have to read this book yourself to see who became a bouncing board.

And of course it goes without saying that we went to Chocolate World. We took the mini tour and heard singing cows. We saw a four D interactive movie (which we both  highly recommend). We made our own candy bars. We took part in a research taste test/survey and earned free Hershey bars. Emily found pressed pennies for her collection. And, we shopped.

When our chocolate tanks were on full, we headed to Massachusetts for the book fest. On all of our long rides, Emily worked on a scavenger hunt and by the time we returned home, she had found twenty four out of the twenty five items. Sadly, we never saw the final item which was a moose.

The book fest was great too. I was able to spend time with one of my besties Laura Eckroat, whom I only get to see every few years. I got to chill with two of my favorite guys, David Kelly and Paul Czajak. Hanging with awesome illustrators Priscilla Alpaugh and Diane deGroat happened as well. Emily decided she needed to purchase two of David's ballpark mysteries because who doesn't love a good mystery! I purchased Paul's book, Seaver the Weaver, for my nephew; and I purchased A Simpler Time, my favorite of all Laura's books, to add to my collection of autographed kidlit!

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 and join the Literacy Musing Monday Link Up where you will find other great blogs, or 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.