Aliens and penguins, naturally

I found this old painting recently ( I think I did it 5 or 6 years ago) and now I'm using it as inspiration for a new story idea. I've written out a detailed plot summary, as it seems to be a little more complex that anything I've written to date, but I'm not sure what kind of book I want it to be at this point. Originally, I thought it would fit in nicely in the early-chapter-book format, (like Sea Surprise and Fat Bat and Swoop) but as I'm writing, I get the sense that it might need more art to tell the story than this type of book traditionally has. So I'm considering trying my hand at a 'graphic novel' type of thing, for younger readers, though -- but I'm a little afraid of that as it's such the "in" format right now. So I'll give it a try and see what happens!

543!

Back in 1997 at The Children's Book Shop, my co-workers and I discovered that the owner of the bookshop had kept track of the title and author of every single book she had ever read (well, not counting picture books) since around age 9 or 10. We all loved this idea and immediately went out and bought journals to start our own 'reading logs.' Well, after 10 years, I'm happy to report that I've read 543 books in the ten years of 1997-2006! (Of course, I know many of you laugh at this tiny little number.) And I can tell you what each one was, too, month by month and year to year.

I made my own little set of 'rules' as to what I'd let be recorded: I wouldn't record anything less than 64 pages; the book must be absolutely finished before entering (this has led to lots of last-week-of-the-month reading, just to get another title logged in a particular month); I also used coded letters to indicate a book that I've reread (R), or to denote a book that I've read aloud to my daughter (marked with an S). So I have a complete record of every chapter book my daughter and I have read together, which is kind of cool now that she's 16. It's pretty addicting once you get started... and it also helps you finish a book that gets sluggish in the middle -- if it doesn't get finished, it doesn't get entered in the book!

Another cover!

Here's the final cover of the first Emily Post book that I've illustrated, Emily's Magic Words, scanned from the f & g's that I just received yesterday! The book is due out this coming fall from HarperCollins, although I don't have the actual publication date yet.