All posts by kathymacmillan

Read This!: GIRLS LIKE US by Randi Pink

January 30, 2020Read This, Recommended Readingrandi pinkkathymacmillan

Girls Like Us by Randi Pink
Summary: Set in the summer of 1972, this moving YA historical novel is narrated by teen girls from different backgrounds with one thing in common: Each girl is dealing with pregnancy. Four teenage girls. Four different stories. What they all have in common is that they’re dealing with unplanned pregnancies. In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her years, but burdened with the responsibility of her older sister, Ola, who has found out she’s pregnant. Their young neighbor, Missippi, is also pregnant, but doesn’t fully understand the extent of her predicament. When her father sends her to Chicago to give birth, she meets the final narrator, Susan, who is white and the daughter of an anti-choice senator. Randi Pink masterfully weaves four lives into a larger story – as timely as ever – about a woman’s right to choose her future.

A devastating, heartfelt story about the far-reaching effects of legislating female bodies. Randi Pink’s characters slowly but surely found their way into my consciousness, so that I often found myself wondering how they were doing, like old friends. The choice to ground the story in historical fiction and then bring us to the near future with the gut-punching final chapters is brilliant. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a long time.

GIRLS LIKE US is out now.

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SHE SPOKE is a Bookstagram Choice Award Winner!

December 9, 2019Awards, She Spokekathymacmillan

I am excited to share that She Spoke: 14 Women Who Raised Their Voices and Changed the World won Best 2019 Anthology of Women for Young Readers in the Bookstagram Choice Awards! (I know this seems like a very specific category, but there have been many wonderful anthologies of women published this year, so it’s a real honor!)

Here’s what the judges had to say about She Spoke:

“She Spoke is a unique anthology of trailblazing women that pairs their stories with their voices. (Remember those books with buttons on the side that play nursery rhymes or farm animal sounds? Like that, but WAY better.) To be precise, the book includes buttons that play actual clips of an inspiring speech by each woman in her own voice! She Spoke features 14 women who raised their voices to make change in the world, and it’s a perfect mix – well-known women like Malala or Jane Goodall, but also lesser-known but equally important women like Dr. Joanne Liu, Suzan Shown Harjo, and Leymah Gbowee.

The concept is brilliant and like nothing I’ve ever seen – to hear these incredible women’s voices saying their iconic words is truly magical. Young readers will be begging to read (and listen to!) this one again and again.”

Did you know you can purchase autographed copies of She Spoke: 14 Women Who Raised Their Voices and Changed the World and benefit Deaf Camps, Inc.’s scholarship program at the same time? Signed books make excellent holiday gifts! Click here to order!

Comings and Goings

October 10, 2019American Sign Language, Chronicles of Cavallon, Upcoming eventskathymacmillan

What a wild October it’s been so far! My house has been on the market for nearly a year, and it finally sold – with less than 2 weeks to pack everything up and move out! I am so grateful to the friends and family members who have rallied behind me to help pack everything up, move it out, and offered soft places to land while we wait to get into our new place.

Suffice it to say, last weekend looked a lot like this:

Gif of Ross Geller from Friends moving a couch up the steps and shouting, "Pivot!"

Writing

I just finished up the fourth and last book in the Chronicles of Cavallon series (publishing in German as Clans von Cavallon under the pen name Kim Forester). Working on this series has been a wonderful experience, and I will miss my centaur, unicorn, pegasus, and kelpie friends. The first two books are out now.

Critique Services Now Available

“You use too many exclamation points, human.”

I’ve also decided to hang up my shingle to offer query letter, synopsis, and manuscript critiques. Check out my critiques page for more information and rates.

Upcoming Programs

The Great ASL Mystery

Cascades Library (Potomac Falls, VA): Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 4 PM
Rust Library (Leesburg, VA): Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 4 PM
Purcellville Library (Purcellville, VA): Saturday, November 9 at 3 PM
Gum Spring Library (Stone Ridge, VA): Wednesday, November 13 at 4 PM
Ashburn Library (Ashburn, VA): Tuesday, November 26 at 4 PM

Where did American Sign Language come from? Flex your fingers and join in the hunt for clues as sign language detective Kathy MacMillan leads silly stories, songs, and more. Kathy is the author of Nita’s First Signs and Little Hands and Big Hands: Children and Adults Signing Together. More info at https://library.loudoun.gov

The SIGN-a-Long Sing-a-long

George Mason Regional Library (Annandale, VA): Saturday, November 2 at 10:30 AM

Teach your fingers how to sing as we explore American Sign Language through music and stories! Bring the whole family for the hands-on fun as signing (and singing) storyteller Kathy MacMillan, author of Nita’s First Signs and Little Hands and Big Hands: Children and Adults Signing Together teaches you to sign some of your favorite songs.

Read This!: OUR YEAR IN LOVE AND PARTIES by Karen Hattrup

October 8, 2019Read This, Recommended Readingkaren hattrupkathymacmillan

Our Year in Love and Parties by Karen Hattrup
Summary: Tucker knows that some relationships take work. With his best friend, Bobby, and his mom, everything is simple, steady. His dad, on the other hand, seems to only show up when he wants to bring Tucker down. Then there’s Erika Green, who comes back into his life, stirring up old feelings. A small part of him knows he shouldn’t get too attached during senior year. But a bigger part doesn’t want her to disappear again. Erika from before the video loved to shock people. Now, she just wants to hole up in her quiet college life and leave the past where it belongs—in a dumpster fire. But then she reconnects with Tucker Campanelli. Erika can’t explain what it is about him. There’s just this undeniable connection between them, and she really doesn’t want to lose that feeling. Not yet.

To be honest, I am not a party person. Whenever I see one of those rom-coms where people are dancing on tables or playing beer pong, I cringe – because the idea of being around a big group of people, most of them drunk, is not now and never has been my idea of fun. But Karen Hattrup’s new novel, Our Year in Love and Parties, goes far beyond the “party night” tropes of teen books and movies to explore the evolving relationship of its two main characters – the sensitive Tucker and the jaded Erika. It’s a clever device, to set the story up in parties on four nights throughout the year (end of summer, Christmas, spring, and the end of the school year), but by drawing on the ebb and flow of teenage lives, Hattrup’s sensitive portrayal goes much deeper than the calendar. Though Erika and Tucker’s relationship is the throughline of the story, we see it in context of the myriad other relationships swirling around the two of them – complicated family dynamics, friendships made and lost and repaired, romances and hookups and everything in between. (And Hattrup excels at creating lovable, memorable side characters who make me wish they each had a starring role in their own novels.) Like Hattrup’s debut, the excellent, lyrical Frannie and Tru, Our Year in Love and Parties captures the sense of fleeting magic in adolescence, when everything is changing but the possibilities are endless.

OUR YEAR IN LOVE AND PARTIES is out now.

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Books About Amazing Girls and Women

September 13, 2019She Spokekathymacmillan

Erin at My Storytime Corner has compiled amazing list of recent children’s books about mighty girls and amazing women, and we are honored that She Spoke: 14 Women Who Raised Their Voices is among them! It’s in great company with awesome books like Mary Wears What She Wants by Keith Negley (about Mary Walker, one of the first women to wear pants), Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell by Tanya Lee Stone and Marjorie Priceman, and One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of Gambia by Miranda Paul and Elizabeth Zunon. Check out the entire list here!