A Mime in Times Square

Yesterday I received the “proofs” for Middle Child Blues, which means the illustrations are set, glossy on the page, with text in place. No folds or binding. Just flat sheets in a stack. It’s always a bit like Christmas when I get to see the illustrations for the first time. They arrived in a big white Fed-Ex envelope, and I wasn’t expecting them. A nice Wednesday surprise. Here is the illustration for the back cover. It will have the caption, “Being in the middle is rough.” From what I understand, Dave Catrow loves to draw dogs. And he does it so well. The dog in the middle here is a bit of a “star” in the book. He dances the watoosi on more than one occasion. Tomorrow I get to see the cover image, and I'll be posting it for you to see.

ALA Awards 2009 John Newbery Medal: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman John Newbery Honor Books: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle Savvy by Ingrid Law After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson Randolph Caldecott Medal: The House in the Night illustrated by Beth Krommes Randolph Caldecott Honor Books: A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet Coretta Scott King Author Award: Kadir Nelson, “We Are the Ship” King Author Honor Books: Hope Anita Smith, “Keeping the Night Watch Joyce Carol Thomas, “The Blacker the Berry” Carole Boston Weatherford, “Becoming Billie Holiday” Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award: Floyd Cooper, “The Blacker the Berry” King Illustrator Honor Books: Kadir Nelson, “We Are the Ship” Sean Qualls, “Before John Was a Jazz Giant” Jerry Pinkney, “The Moon Over Star” Coretta S

Last Tuesday I got to visit Syracuse Arts Academy! Illustrator Will Terry and I were scheduled to do a joint assembly in the morning, then break into workshops throughout the rest of the day. As soon as we arrived there were huge banners with our names, welcoming us to the school. Then in the entry the children had made “books” out of cereal boxes and had created them based on the themes of our books. I was just sick that with all my equipment I had forgotten to bring my camera. Before students filed into the gym, we quickly hooked up my laptop to the school’s projector and got the screen image centered, etc. Then Will and I were introduced, to thunderous applause. Wow, what a treat. Weeks earlier, Will and I had emailed photos back and forth and created a PowerPoint “How-well-do-you-know-Will-and-Kristyn quiz show.” In the assembly we had the students raise their hands and guess which one of us played piano as a child and which played cello, which one had seven kids, which one was add

I drove home one afternoon and there were some crows in the street in front of our house. We don't see crows around here all that often and it was a little peculiar. They just seemed to be taking a stroll. This Crow (meaning me) is preparing for an assembly at an arts academy in Syracuse. There's a lot that goes into planning an assembly, like organizing pictures and animations in a PowerPoint presentation, arranging and packing up my rhythm instruments (I have nearly 100), getting my technical gadets ready, etc. Today I was able to puchase a remote control which will advance my PowerPoint slides in the presentation. This has been a problem in the past, when the schools had PowerPoint projectors and I had the laptop, but there was not a remote which would function with it. So I had to position myself next to my laptop and click, which isn't a terrible thing but not the ideal situation. Hopefully everything will run smoothly. I'm very excited to be presenting with illus