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My husband, Al, is a waaaay better photographer than I am. Somehow my photos end up tilted or include something I didn’t want in the picture: a jacket sleeve obscuring a flower, a traffic light that looks like a hat on the person I was trying to capture. Al took this photo of our spring visitor Rhonda (for Rhonda alaa Turca) through our basement window! What a fascinating creature she is! We hope she returns with babies, as she (we like to think she’s the same feathered visitor) did 2 summers ago. Look at the detail on Al’s photo–through the glass!!

Waay back in a previous post (May 14, 2014 to be exact), I showed an example of my Sticker Art, in which I peel off fruit and vegetable stickers and make art out of them. Calling it # 1 of a series, I forgot to continue with # 2. Oops. I will remedy that right now!

# 2: Illustration of Stick-toitiveness

A lovely birthday present for me this year was Pelican Publishing’s fall catalogue! I was excited to find my new book–What’s Up With this Chicken?–along with bios and photos of the illustrator, Peter Welling, and moi: 

http://www.pelicanpub.com/proddetail.php?prod=9781455620852#.VVYNR9rBzRY

Isn’t the publisher’s logo adorable?!

A BBC poll of critics from around the world resulted in 21 favorites. # 1….drum roll? Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White.

Roald Dahl has 2 books on this group of faves. Here is the complete list:

1. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
3. Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
5. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
6. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
7. Winnie-the-Pooh – AA Milne
8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
9. A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula Le Guin
10. A Wrinkle in Time – Madeline L’Engle
11. The Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder
12. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
13. From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – EL Koenigsburg
14. The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
15. His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman
16. Matilda – Roald Dahl
17. Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
18. Pippi Longstocking – Astrid Lindgren
19. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
20. Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown and Pat Hancock
21. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

I’m psyched! My next book (due out September 15th) is up on Amazon…with the cover, a description and author and illustrator info. Here’s the link:

What’s Up with This Chicken Jane Sutton, Peter Welling 9781455620852 Amazon.com Books

For anyone who lives within a reasonable drive of Lexington, MA: a new session of a community ed class I teach on writing for children will resume on Tuesday evening, April 14th. We always get a congenial group of writers working in a variety of genres and discuss issues like plot arc, character development, and query letters. Feel free to contact me with questions.

Lexington Community Education
146 Maple Street, Lexington, MA 02421 | tel: 781 862 8043 | info@lexingtoncommunityed.org
Preregistration is required for all classes. (c) Copyright 2003 – 2012 Lexington Community Education.

…every week should be Children’s Book Week, in my opinion. But here’s this year’s charming poster, designed by Grace Lee:

I was so pleased, and I’m sure readers around the world will be pleased, to read that more Dr. Seuss manuscripts have been discovered! The first one, which the publisher (Random House) estimates was written between 1958 and 1962, is due out in July!!!!

After getting 3 feet of snow in the last 10 days and more predicted tomorrow, we could use some help from the “Abbey Snowed” crew…

I am NOT a fan of winter… I admit that our backyard looks dramatic in a snowstorm, as you can see from my husband’s photo below. And I suppose being stuck inside is conducive to writing…

But I’d much rather be looking out at (or rather, standing next to) those same rhododendrons in full June bloom…2 months ’til spring!