All posts by kathymacmillan

Writing for All Ages

Authors You Should Know, Interviews, On Publishing, On Writing

I was honored to take part recently in a group interview of authors who publish books for multiple age groups, along with authors: Hena Khan, Nora Shalaway Carpenter, Leah Henderson, and Casey Lyall. Robin Galbraith conducted the interview for Cynsations, the excellent writing resource blog run by New York Times bestselling, award-winning children’s-YA author and all-around lifter-up-of-other-creators, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Click here to read “Writing & Marketing for Multiple Age-Levels” at Cynsations.

(And shout-out to Casey Lyall, who provided my new favorite phrase in listing her picture books as being geared to “ages 0 to Immortal Being”. )

NITA’S FIRST SIGNS Named 2018 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist

American Sign Language, Awards, board books, Little Hands Signing series, Nita's First Signs

Nita's First Signs final coverNita’s First Signs has been recognized as a finalist in the 21st annual Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, in the Picture Book, Early Reader category!

As part of its mission to discover, review, and share the best books from university and independent publishers, Foreword Magazine, Inc. hosts an annual awards program each year. Finalists represent the best books published in 2018. After more than 2,000 individual titles spread across 56 genres were submitted for consideration, the list of finalists was determined by Foreword’s editorial team. Winners will be decided by an expert team of booksellers and librarians—representing Foreword’s readership—from across the country.

The complete list of finalists can be found at: https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/finalists/2018/

Winners in each genre—along with Editor’s Choice Prize winners and Foreword’s INDIE Publisher of the Year—will be announced June 14, 2019.

Founded in 1998, Foreword Magazine, Inc. is the only media company completely devoted to independent publishing. Publishers of a Folio: award-winning bimonthly print review journal, special interest products, and daily online content feeds, Foreword exclusively covers university and independent (non “Big 5”) publishers, the books they publish, and their authors. Foreword is based in Traverse City, Michigan, with staff based worldwide.

 

Read This!: A QUESTION OF HOLMES by Brittany Cavallaro

Read This, Reviews,

A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)A Question of Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro

Summary: Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson think they’re finally in the clear. They’ve left Sherringford School—and the Moriartys—behind for a pre-college summer program at Oxford University. A chance to start from scratch and explore dating for the first time, while exploring a new city with all the freedom their program provides. But when they arrive, Charlotte is immediately drawn into a new case: a series of accidents have been befalling the members of the community theater troupe in Oxford, and now, on the eve of their production of Hamlet, they’re starting all over again. What once seemed like a comedy of errors is now a race to prevent the next tragedy—before Charlotte or Jamie is the next victim.

Anyone who has been in my orbit in the last three years knows how much I adore the Charlotte Holmes series. So I was prepared to love this final entry in the series without reservation, but I didn’t expect how much Charlotte’s hard-fought journey would resonate with me as a reader, and how wonderful it would be to see Charlotte, so often the star in someone else’s starry-eyed dream, take the lead and tell her own story. She’s a long way from the rough-edged, vibrant, damaged girl of the first book, and yet she’s not. Seeing her grow and change and start to understand how she can love and need someone and yet need to be apart from them…it was heartbreaking in the best way. I worried that Jamie would be less endearing when so little of the story was from his point of view, but no risk of that; no one appreciates Jamie like our Charlotte. How could such a series with such a heroine come to a fitting conclusion? Cavallaro gives us an answer that is the perfect mix of heartwarming, hilarious, moving, and deeply, viscerally satisfying.

A QUESTION OF HOLMES is out now.

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Read This!: TRANSFORMED: THE PERILS OF THE FROG PRINCE by Megan Morrison

Read This, Reviews, ,

Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince (Tyme #3)Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince by Megan Morrison

The third book in the Tyme series is a slam dunk from beginning to end. In GROUNDED and DISENCHANTED, Morrison turned familiar fairy tales on their heads; in this outing, she goes one step further and upends readers’ understanding of the first two books. That’s because Prince Frog, Rapunzel’s small green companion, turns out to be none other than Prince Syrah of the Olive Isles, a loathsome, selfish lad who made the wrong wish on a well. While roaming the land of Tyme with Rapunzel and Jack, Syrah has tried desperately to get home, to someone who might be able to help him turn human again, and the All Tyme Championships in Yellow Country are his chance. But when a mysterious illness cuts the competition short and the governor lapses into a coma, Syrah has to become the world’s smallest detective to figure out what’s happening and how to be a decent human being to break the curse.

There is so much I love about this book. I love that Syrah is a royal jerk. I love that, just as she did with Rapunzel, Morrison has given us a protagonist who is not immediately likeable but is definitely relatable, and then plops us right into his perspective and shows how he justifies everything to himself. I love everything about the ending, which I won’t give away, but just trust me, READ IT. I love how much we learn about Jack and Rapunzel, even though this isn’t their story. I love how badass and awesome Deli, the object of Syrah’s affections, and her grandmother both are, and how nuanced the relationship between them is. I love how Syrah learns how he must transform to be transformed. And I love how Morrison pulls in real-world issues like GMOs, election politics, and women’s rights with the lightest touch, weaving a spell that will have readers demanding more tales from the land of Tyme.

TRANSFORMED is out now.

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