Happy Thursday and welcome to Picture Book Spotlight! Today we have a picture book debut to spotlight, and I'm so pumped to feature author Jen Anyong! This is such a fun story, and Kaly absolutely killed the artwork. Congrats to the Harper team on this Halloween hit! For many folks, the summer heat creates a longing for fall. For something chilly and spooky. For me, after the last fireworks of July 4th, I wake up ready for autumn. Does anybody else feel that way? My social me

To all facing a closed door. To all who knock. I've enjoyed hearing responses to The Almost Book over the years. Ever since posting it, I've been curious to share similar content. So here's another... The original draft for this story was written in July of 2021 in the middle of the night on my iPhone when I couldn’t sleep (you know you do it too!). I had been feeling frustrated with not finding a home for my second book (what would eventually become This is Not a Sleepy Bear

Happy Friday and welcome to Picture Book Spotlight! Yesterday, my wife, Katherine, and I got to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary (or as we describe it, our family's 15th birthday). To make it fun for our kids, we all had cake to mark the occasion. New tradition! Katherine is and always has been (aside from my parents) my biggest fan and supporter of this little author thing I do. She gets to see me excited and frustrated by creative problems, watch me laugh at my own du

Happy Thursday and welcome to Picture Book Spotlight! I am writing to you from the crystaline figurative waters of summer break. Ahhhhhhh...this teacher is happy. I love my job and working with my students and team, but this was a challenging year. Not the time to get into the weeds of exactly why, but being an English teacher in the age of AI and launching a book and having a third child in the middle of the school year might have had something to do with it... But now summe