Big thanks to Lindsey Lane of The Meandering Lane for featuring me as her Quotable Tuesday guest this week!
Just in case you haven’t been following this wonderful series, every Tuesday Lindsey asks authors to share favorite quotes which inspire and/or sustain them in their writing.
To see what I shared, click here. And click here to read all the Quotable Tuesdays on Lindsey’s blog.
P.S. Happy Roald Dahl Day!! ☺
We were very lucky not to have experienced any flood damage from Hurricane Irene here in our part of Virginia, but there are libraries in upstate New York and Vermont who’ve suffered devastating damage and still need lots of help.
Author Kate Messner has done a fantastic job of keeping everyone updated on the relief efforts for the Wells Memorial Library in Upper Jay, New York, and the West Hartford Library in Vermont, which lost its entire children’s collection. There are many ways to help, including sending a check directly to the libraries involved, contributing to a library gift card at The Bookstore Plus, or, if you are an author or illustrator, contributing a signed book for a fundraiser to be held in October.
So far, the response has been terrific, with donations coming in from all over the world. I was about to send a box of books to Upper Jay, but have decided to hold off for now, as they are worried about storage space and the potential for more flooding. As Kate mentions in this update, the best way to help right now is by sending a check or by calling the bookstore to order a recommended book or by contributing to the library gift card. If you haven’t already done so, please click here to read Kate’s posts about the libraries, with full details about how to help.
Have you entered the Cooking 4 Kids Recipe Contest yet? Nate and Salli at They Draw and Cook (a very cool website featuring illustrated recipes from all over the world) with allrecipes.com, are accepting entries of illustrated kid-friendly recipes until September 12, 2011. That’s right! Think of something kids love to eat and put your artsy spin on it. First Prize is $500, a copy of the forthcoming They Draw and Cook book, and an allrecipes.com Supporting Membership. Top 25 entries will be showcased at allrecipes.com and uploaded to greatbigcanvas where they’ll be available for purchase.
Here’s one of my favorites (click on image for larger view):
Isn’t it great? Can’t wait for the new book to come out in October, which features 107 illustrated recipes from all over the world. Click on the image to pre-order:
For full details about the Cooking 4 Kids Contest, click here.
Have a delicious week!
♥ read ♥ write ♥ cook ♥ smile ♥ eat ♥ sing ♥ dance ♥ doodle ♥ paint ♥
And Hello, Shiny New Blog!
Welcome, new readers, and thank you, old friends, for following us here (I imagine you were lured by the aroma of sugary buttercream, decadent dark chocolate and shy strawberry). I’ve always admired your incomparably keen olfactories. ☺
Can’t think of a better way to celebrate a blog birthday than by moving into a brand new cyber kitchen. The fur-clad sous chefs and I are having fun practice-cooking and sniffing out all the shiny new buttons and toys features here on WordPress. As much as we loved our LiveJournal kitchen, things over there were getting a little too hairy, so we decided it was time to find a new place to play.
Hard to believe that since 2007, I’ve written over 1000 posts, uploaded over 7000 images, and consumed 3,457 a few cupcakes. Yes, many sacrifices were made along the way — visiting bakeries and restaurants, trying out poetic recipes, stalking meeting cookbook authors, and scientifically analyzing the correlation between dark chocolate and writing productivity.
Ah, but it was worth it, every last guzzle and crumb, because it was all for YOU — the best looking, hungriest smartest, most congenial readers in the entire blogosphere. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me. Writing for a blog audience is quite different from anything I’ve ever done before. It’s an ongoing challenge to maintain the discipline needed to cook up palatable content on a regular basis, and I’ve learned the importance of trusting one’s instincts. In the end, you have to simply be yourself, be honest, and have faith that it will be enough.
Only through blogging could one encounter dancing chickens, discover teddy bear bento, taste Olivia Walton’s applesauce cake (there’s booze in the frosting!), and ponder those intriguing bumps on the surface of French macarons. I still get a little giddy thinking about interviewing rock star children’s lit people like Lee Bennett Hopkins and Marla Frazee, and continue to marvel at the untold generosity of the kidlit community.
It’s been a blast meeting some of you in person — food was always part of the plan, of course! The world’s best baker made a lemon cake in the alphabet soup kitchen last year, while his wife, a notable Coretta Scott King Honor author, pranced about with reckless abandon in teddy bear slippers. Recently I shared some mini carrot cake cupcakes with a brilliant author/poet in the beautiful Connecticut River Valley, and had dinner with another dear writer friend in the 18th century tavern where Thomas Jefferson held his inaugural ball.
Food, history, books, people — ingredients that continually spice up my life soup. Blogging has piqued my passion for seeking out more food in fiction. What are those characters eating and why? (I don’t fully trust a character who never eats anything.) And what was the author eating while he/she was writing the book? A simple bowl of porridge, with its socio-economic, cultural overtones, tells a story all its own, and I love tracking down each and every spoonful through time and space.
An enthusiastic observer, chronicler, fledgling food historian and detective, I am lucky to be so well fed, but will always hunger for more. And how I love to dish it up! The table is set and I see you’re wearing a killer bib. Have as many cupcakes as you like, thanks again for the company, and bring on the 5th course of alphabet soup!
Copyright © 2011 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.
Roll out the purple carpet, pass the poetry and the pizza: the one and only Lee Bennett Hopkins is here!
For years and years, I’d see the name “Lee Bennett Hopkins” on dozens and dozens of book covers as poet, author and anthologist, but never once imagined one day I’d have the pleasure of welcoming him to my blog. No one, in the history of children’s literature, has compiled more poetry anthologies than he has (100+ to date), and I’m certain most everyone — whether poet, author, educator, librarian, editor, publisher or reader — agrees that no one else has done as much to nurture, support and promote children’s poetry with such full-hearted enthusiasm and tenacity.
He’s won numerous awards and honors as author and anthologist, such as the Christopher Award, Golden Kite Honor, and NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, and has established two awards: the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the Lee Bennett Hopkins/IRA Promising Poet Award.
TheCookingPhotographer/flickr
But apart from his long list of accomplishments and accolades, he’s also someone who likes the color purple and a good pizza, and who, in his heart of hearts, truly believes that poetry is absolutely essential for all children, both at home and in the classroom. Bring books and children together, and teach them to love reading. I’m so honored to have Lee visit alphabet soup to tell us a little about the art of compiling anthologies and to share a few tidbits about the three books he’s published so far this year:
I Am the Book (Holiday House, 2011), a collection of 13 exuberant poems celebrating the magic of reading with whimsical illustrations by Colombian artist Yayo,
Dizzy Dinosaurs: Silly Dino Poems (HarperCollins, 2011), 19 humorous poems selected especially for the beginning reader with vibrant cartoony illustrations by Barry Gott, and
Hear My Prayer (Zonderkidz, 2011), a selection of 13 simple verses on a variety of universal themes with illustrations by Gigi Moore.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 