March/April Horn Book Magazine cover

Last spring I did a presentation at the Texas Library Association conference, as part of a panel on non-fiction books, alongside Marc Aronson, Viki Ash and Betty Carter. My presentation focused on illustrating nonfiction picture books. I was a little nervous, knowing that Marc, Viki, and Betty were all well-established experts in children's literature, and I'm still relatively new to this. But I focused on what I knew, didn't pretend to know anything I didn't know, and it went well. So well, in fact, that soon after the conference, The Horn Book Magazine asked if I would be interested in turning my presentation into an article for their magazine! (I think Marc Aronson and Betty Carter had something to do with this...)

Long story short, The UPS truck just pulled up to my house and delivered 6 copies of the March/April issue of The Horn Book Magazine, with not only my article inside it, but my illustration on the cover!

Here it is:

I still get excited when The Horn Book reviews one of my books, so to see my illustration right there on the cover is pretty incredible. I'm also extremely honored to have my article (entitled, A Reason for the Picture: Illustrating Nonfiction Picture Books) featured in this issue, alongside articles by some of the leading voices in children's literature, including Katherine Paterson, Marc Aronson, Steve Jenkins, Tanya Lee Stone, Elizabeth Partridge, Laurie Halse Anderson, Andrea Davis Pinkney, Leonard S. Marcus, Roger Sutton, Monica Edinger... the list goes on, and it's a pretty amazing list.

I'm honored to have my article and illustrations included in this issue, and looking forward to reading it!

2010 Cybils Award winners announced

The winners of the 2010 Cybil Awards were announced this morning! Here's the full list of winners.

I admit, this is the first year I paid close attention to the Cybils Awards, and it was for completely selfish reasons- my book, Henry Aaron's Dream was chosen as a finalist in the nonfiction picture books category. My book didn't win (that honor went to Babrara Kerley's and Edwin Fotheringham's completely-deserving The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy)), but seriously it was such an honor to be picked as a finalist.

I'm amazed by how much time and energy children's book bloggers put into these awards, and also how much time and energy so many of them put into their blogs. For the most part, these are people who have full-time jobs, and some of these blogs must end up being the equivalent of a second full-time job. And for the most part, they're not getting paid for it, and unlike author blogs (including my own), there is no element of self-promotion involved. They just LOVE books. And to have my book recognized as one of the best of the year by a group so passionate about books is pretty awesome. So thanks bloggers! I'll be looking forward to the 2011 Cybils, even if my book doesn't make it to the finals.

Carol H. Rasco, one of the judges in the non-fiction picture books category, has a nice roundup of the winner and finalists on her blog today.