Hey gang! Author visit season is in full swing and I’ve had the joy of spending my unseasonably warm spring with tons of awesome kids at elementary schools around the country. Here’s a great article about my visit this week to Ball Charter School in Springfield, IL.
Enjoy!
Hey everyone!
Well, I’ve been a naughty little blogger and haven’t made many posts in the last several months, but I hope to correct that in the months ahead. Many new books are in the works and I’ll keep you posted about those as news surfaces!
In the spirit of that, I’d love to share the cover sketch for a new book that David Barneda and I are developing. It’s called PIRATES VS COWBOYS and will be published by Knopf sometime next year. Here’s the cover sketch:
The rest of the book is shaping up awesome, with lots of fishy squishy pirates and rootin’ tootin’ cowboys, culminating in an bang-up showdown of epic proportions.
I’m also keeping busy doing many school visits this year. I had a fantastic time with the 4th and 5th graders of Sherwood Elementary in Highland Park, IL last week. Thanks to that gang for making me feel so welcome.
I’ll report in again real soon! I promise!
Hey gang!
I’m thrilled to announce the winners of our Joey Fly Art Contest! This contest made for some really tough judging…we received hundreds of fabulous art creations and my office was literally infested with all your creepy crawly renditions of Joey, Sammy, Harry, and all their buggy ilk. The other judges (my kids) and I hemmed and hawed forever, but finally had to narrow down the winners. In the end, we had to add an additional winner to the five we planned on, just because we couldn’t decide.
Thanks a million for all your awesome entries!
So…enough of the dramatic build-up. Here, in no particular order, are the six winners to the Joey Fly Art Contest!
Christine Turner - Age 40
We loved Christine’s cool take on the main bug himself, Joey Fly.
Alex Morales - Age 10
Alex knocked our socks off with his fun and funky version of Sammy Stingtail!
Muhammed Jamsheed - 1st grade
We loved Muhammed’s fantastic in-your-face take on the classic Joey Fly. It was imaginative and awesome in all the right ways!
Diana Wegner - Age 8
Diana’s colorful rendition of Delilah and Flittany tra-la-la-ing along the coast on a sun-shiny day can be described in one word. To quote my daughter: “Joyful!”
Samantha Hanley - Age 9
Samantha was singing the blues with her moody noir take on Joey Fly, but the results delighted us completely!
Jack Turner - 2nd grade
Jack cracked us up and left us screaming for seconds with his fun and funny spin on the munchy ladybug Gloria.
Each winner will receive a signed copy of Joey Fly, Private Eye #1 for themselves, a signed copy of Joey Fly Private Eye #2 for their school library, and a custom-drawn bug caricature of themselves, done by Neil Numberman himself! Congrats!
Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest! You all did great!
As a fun treat for the end of the school year, I’m delighted to announce the JOEY FLY ART CONTEST! I’m excited to see YOUR artwork of your favorite Joey Fly characters. And there are cool prizes for FIVE winners! So get drawing, sketching, and painting! Oh, wait…here are the rules…
WHAT DO I DRAW?
1. Any character from any of the Joey Fly, Private Eye books. It can be from Book #1 or Book #2. Pick your favorite character! It might be Joey, Sammy, Delilah, Fleeago, Harry Spyderson…even a bedbug! They’re all fair game!
2. It has to be an original drawing. No tracing. No coloring sheets. No cutting a picture out from the book and putting your name on it. We’ll know…trust me.
3. It can be in any medium…pencil, watercolors, acrylic paints, marker…you name it!
WHO CAN ENTER?
Anybody! All ages are welcome, from two-years-old to a-hundred-and-two. Drawing Joey Fly characters…it’s not just for kids anymore!
WHAT CAN I WIN?
Glad you asked! Five winners, judged by myself and my kids, will receive the following sweet swag:
1. A hardcover copy of Joey Fly, Private Eye #1, personalized and signed by Aaron Reynolds and illustrator Neil Numberman
2. A hardcover copy of Joey Fly, Private Eye #2 FOR YOUR SCHOOL LIBRARY (or the library of your choice), personalized and signed by Aaron Reynolds and illustrator Neil Numberman
3. A custom-created bug-caricature of yourself, drawn by Joey Fly illustrator Neil Numberman. Here’s the one he did of us (i don’t know who that little bee in the middle is…some kid who walked into the shot):
HOW DO I GET MY AWESOME ARTWORK TO YOU?
Easy. Just e-mail it to Joeyflycontest@aaron-reynolds.com. Make sure to include your full name and age in the e-mail, so we can post it if you win!
Oh, and make sure that the subject of your e-mail is: Joey Fly Contest. That’s it! Don’t send it to any other e-mail, or it won’t get judged and will probably get deleted. Which is sad on many levels.
WHEN IS THE CONTEST DEADLINE?
All entries need to be received no later than Monday, May 20, 2011. Winners will be announced that week. That’s like 3 weeks away!! Shouldn’t you get drawing already?!
ANY OTHER RULES?
Nope. You can enter as many times as you like. You can be a kid, a teacher, a grownup, a moody teenager…whatever! We take all kinds here. So go get a copy of Joey Fly, Private Eye, pick your favorite character, and GET CREATING!
Much of my school year is spent with kids doing author visits at Elementary Schools. We read books, make salsa, create graphic novels, and generally get inspired by books and reading. And last Tuesday, April 5th was no exception. I had a blast with the kids and teachers of Barbara Rose Elementary School in South Barrington, IL.
Ryan Henry's awesome drawing of Leonard from "Superhero School"
I was greeted as soon as I walked in the door by some familiar faces…my own characters! The kids had done a FABULOUS job of creating their own versions of my book characters, and the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with their masterpieces.
Cool and funky rendition of Joey Fly, drawn by Jacob Devadas
The younger kids had a blast as we read CHICKS AND SALSA, learned to make homemade salsa, and talked about where authors get their inspiration.
1st grader Andrew prepares to make salsa with Aaron
In the afternoon, the 4th and 5th graders put their inspiration to work as they created their very own graphic novels, inspired by JOEY FLY, PRIVATE EYE.
4th and 5th graders learn how a graphic novel gets created and published
Aaron had an AWESOME time with the kids and teachers of Barbara Rose Elementary School!
Aaron LOVES the smell of cilantro! Kindergartner Olivia...is not so sure.
The nominee list for ALA Notable Books for 2010 came out today, and I’m delighted to share that my book BACK OF THE BUS, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, has made the nominee list. It stands in good company, as you’ll see from the full list of picture book nominees below. The American Library Association Notable Books Committee with make final selections later this month at the ALA Mid-Winter Conference. I’m delighted to be on a list with such incredible authors and illustrators.
Here’s the complete list of all the contenders. Congrats and good luck to all the nominees!
| Picture Books |
|||
| April and Esme, Tooth Fairies | Graham, Bob | ||
| Art & Max | Wiesner, David | ||
| Back of the Bus | Reynolds, Aaron | ||
| Bag in the Wind | Kooser, Ted | ||
| Balancing Act | Walsh, Ellen Stoll | ||
| Beaver is Lost | Cooper, Elisha | ||
| Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation | Sherman, Pat | ||
| Big Red Lollipop | Khan, Rukhsana | ||
| The Boss Baby | Frazee, Marla | ||
| Brontorina | Howe, James | ||
| Bunny Days | Nyeu, Tao | ||
| Chalk | Thomson, Bill | ||
| City Dog, Country Frog | Willems, Mo | ||
| Clever Jack Takes the Cake | Fleming, Candace | ||
| Dogs | Gravett, Emily | ||
| Dust Devil | Isaacs, Anne | ||
| Ernest, the Moose Who Doesn’t Fit | Rayner, Catherine | ||
| Farm | Cooper, Elisha | ||
| Feeding the Sheep | Schubert, Leda | ||
| Floating on Mama’s Song/Flotando en la Cancion de mama | Lacamara, Laura | ||
| Flora’s Very Windy Day | Birdsall, Jeanne | ||
| Goal! | Javaherbin, Mina | ||
| In Front of My House | Dubuc, Marianne | ||
| It’s a Book | Smith, Lane | ||
| The Junkyard Wonders | Polacco, Patricia | ||
| Let’s Say Hi to Friends Who Fly! | Willems, Mo | ||
| LMNO Peas | Baker, Keith | ||
| Me and You | Browne, Anthony | ||
| Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don’t) | Bottner, Barbara | ||
| Moon Bear | Guiberson, Brenda Z. | ||
| Mr. Putney’s Quacking Dog | Agee, Jon | ||
| My Brother Charlie | Peete, Holly Robinson and Ryan Elizabeth Peete | ||
| My Garden | Henkes, Kevin | ||
| My Heart Is Like a Zoo | Hall, Michael | ||
| Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) | Barnett, Mac | ||
| One Too Many: A Seek and Find Counting Book | Marino, Gianna | ||
| Pecan Pie Baby | Woodson, Jacqueline | ||
| Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes | Litwin, Eric | ||
| A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade | Preller, James | ||
| The Quiet Book | Underwood, Deborah | ||
| The Rabbit Problem | Gravett, Emily | ||
| Rain School | Rumford, James | ||
| Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth! | Gay, Marie-Louise | ||
| Rubia and the Three Osos | Elya, Susan Middleton | ||
| Ruth and the Green Book | Ramsey, Calvin Alexander | ||
| Seasons | Blexbolex | ||
| Shadow | Lee, Suzy | ||
| Shark vs. Train | Barton, Chris | ||
| A Sick Day for Amos McGee | Stead, Philip C. | ||
| Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down | Pinkney, Andrea Davis | ||
| Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy | Fleming, Denise | ||
| Snook Alone | Nelson, Marilyn | ||
| There’s Going to Be a Baby | Burningham, John | ||
| Tuck Me In | Hacohen, Dean | ||
| The Village Garage | Karas, G. Brian | ||
| We Planted a Tree | Muldrow, Diane | ||
| What If? | Seeger, Laura Vaccaro | ||
| What the Ladybug Heard | Donaldson, Julia | ||
| Yasmin’s Hammer | Malaspina, Ann | ||
| Yucky Worms | French, Vivian |
Welcome to Joey Fly #2 Blog Tour Central!
Our Joey Fly #2 Blog Tour will be going on all through December, so be sure to stop by all our blog visits and chime in! There will be video interviews! Reviews of the book! And LOADS of free Joey Fly downloadables and prizes and swag and give-aways and…I’ve run out of words that mean “free Joey Fly stuff”. I guess you’ll have to come by and see for yourself.
Here are the upcoming blog stops for the next couple weeks. So get off your stinger and come by!
Monday, Dec 6 – Book Nut
Tuesday, Dec 7 – Thing 1 & Thing 2
Friday, Dec 10 – The Kats Whiskers
Sunday, Dec 12 – Kidsmomo
Monday, Dec 13 – The Brain Lair
Tuesday, Dec 14 – Kids Book Buzz
Thursday, Dec 16 – Elana Johnson’s Blog
Hey peeps!
Just updating you on the blog tour that me and Joey Fly illustrator Neil Numberman have been doing. We’ve made a bunch of great stops, but many more are planned for the coming few weeks. Please stop by, leave a comment, say hey, ask a question, and be part of the conversation. Kids and teachers especially welcome!
Here’s the schedule for the rest of this week. More updates to follow.
Today (Dec 1) – Christine Fonseca’s Blog
Dec 2 – The Bookanistas
Dec 3 – A Writer’s Journey (prizes and give-aways will be given!)
Show up, would ya?
Hey gang,
I was over at Tara Lazar’s blog during the tour yesterday, and a great question came up from another writer.
“How do you format a graphic novel manuscript? Is it different from a novel or picture book manuscript?”
The answer is that I actually write something that looks more like a script for a play or a screenplay. It has all the dialogue and captions assigned, but also contains “stage directions” in the form of action, description and the like. Not “illustration notes” per se, but crucial information to help the illustrator (and editor) visualize the story.
This is actually a question I hear quite a bit from other writers wondering if the graphic novel medium is something they’d like to explore. So, I thought I’d put an example here for all to see.
Below is an example from my manuscript of Joey Fly, Private Eye 2: Big Hairy Drama. This is what it looks like when I write it. If you want to compare it to the actual book, you’ll see that this short manuscript example actually makes up pages 28-31 in the finished book.
Don’t have a copy of the book to compare? I’m here to serve! Buy one HERE. 🙂
(Manuscript excerpt from Joey Fly, Private Eye 2: Big Hairy Drama)
Panel
(Joey and Sammy arrive at their office.)
Joey: All right, side dish. Here’s our stop.
Panel
Sammy: Are you hungry, or is it just me?
Joey: You just had lunch.
Panel
Sammy: My lunch was interrupted!
Caption: For such a little guy, the kid can pack in the junk food. And yet, he still manages to maintain that girlish figure.
Panel
Joey: Give me a break. You just ate half the pepperoni in the city.
Panel
Sammy: I have a high metabolism. Oh look! Gum! (Sammy picks part of a human sized wad of gum off the floor and eats it.)
Panel
(Joey is looking at Sammy, disgusted.)
Caption: I eat poop, ok? So, I’m not exactly what you’d call a discriminating eater. But there are still some things that should go uneaten. I’m just saying.
Panel
Joey: All right, kid, let’s go.
(Joey goes into the office.)
Panel
(Sammy is still outside.)
Panel
(After a minute, Joey comes back out.)
Panel
Joey: What are you waiting for, cracker jack? An invitation?
Panel
Sammy: (Sammy’s feet are stuck in the gum.) I’m stuck.
Panel
Joey: You just had to have dessert…
Panel
(Joey tugs Sammy, but Sammy trips, pulling Joey into the gum too.)
Panel
(They tussle trying to get out, but pretty soon are hogtied together in the gum.)
Panel
Caption: And there we were…all gummed up and nowhere to go.
Panel
Caption: To make matters worse, that stupid stinger of his was dangling inches over our heads, like a poisonous piñata on Cinco de Mayo.
Caption: And me without a stick.
Only 19 days until the second installment of the Joey Fly, Private Eye series is released! The new book, Joey Fly, Private Eye 2: Big Hairy Drama, comes out on November 23 and has already received some fun attention, including being picked as a Junior Library Guild Selection for 2011.
To celebrate the release, the illustrator (Neil Numberman) and I will be traveling around the blogosphere on a Blog Tour throughout the months of November and December. There will be interviews, video appearances, fun give-aways, and contests with cool prizes, so subscribe to this blog now and get regular updates on the tour stops and locations. You won’t want to miss all the creepy crawly buggy fun!
First stop: Today at Tara Lazar’s blog Writing for Kids (while Raising Them). Should be a blast, so come on by! And be sure to drop your comments on her blog…every commenter has a chance to win a custom bug-caricature of themselves drawn and signed by Neil Numberman. Here’s one he did of me:
Are my antennae really that big?
Don’t miss out on the buggy mayhem!
For those of you who like to plan, here’s a complete run-down of the blog tour schedule. More will be added in coming days. And I’ll be posting regular updates here from the (virtual) road, as well as reminder announcements for each stop, so be sure to hit subscribe now to have these show up automatically in your mailbox.
Joey Fly #2 Blog Tour Schedule
Nov 4 – Tara Lazar, Writing for Kids (while Raising Them)
Nov 20 – Kathryn Packer Roberts, Literary Works in the Works
Dec 1 & 2 – Christine Fonseca, The Bookanistas
Dec 3 – Beth Coulton, A Writer’s Journey
Dec 6 – Melissa Fox, Book Nut
Dec 7 – Corey Schwartz, Thing 1 & Thing 2
Dec 12 – Karen Wang and Nancy Tsai, Kidsmomo
Dec 13 – Kathy Burnette, The Brain Lair
Dec 14 – Patrick Hoecherl, Kids Book Buzz
Dec 16 – Elana Johnson
Dec 20 – Cheryl Tasses, Reading Rumpus
See you there!
Blog Monster 
