Marketing New Books

Take a look at the video trailers to market new books that I found on writer,  Stacy Eaton's blog.   The books are Come Back to Me, which will be available November 1st; My Blood Runs Blue, by Stacy Eaton herself; Sounds of Murder, In Leah's Wake, and Black: Beast: A Clan of MacAulay, all now available on amazon.

You may be interested in this book review of an authorized biography titled simply, Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson which covers the good, the bad, and the ugly about Jobs.

Here is one more link that I found interesting.  It's a link to a new children's book, Island Princess, by Diane Browne, one of the best geography teachers I ever had in high school. (I remember her being short and dainty walking in her extremely high heeled shoes.)  I liked her insight about book covers to market children's books.  Her comments are true; most Jamaicans do have family who live abroad or know someone who has family abroad.  I have family members who emigrated to the United States in 1919.  I also liked the most recent post on book covers and Caribbean culture.

Award Winning Books

Winning! I just found out through Facebook that my former Geography teacher, Diane Browne, won a Commonwealth award for her short story for children, The Happiness Dress.  The Overall winner was Philip Nash with his book, Rejoinder . Barbara Nash from Trinidad was the Caribbean winner with Head Not Made for Hat Alone.

Choosing a book for a Child

My niece turned 5 last week and I am just getting around to mailing a gift. I have been credited for helping to turn my 20 year old god -daughter into an avid reader by giving her gifts of interesting books when she was a child. My "reputation" was at stake. I had to find the perfect book for my 5 year old. I looked at the I Spy series online and they seemed like fun, especially I Spy Fantasy. The series was recommended to me by a mother with young children. In I Spy, the children get to hear or read a nice rhyme and look for hidden items in pictures. I looked at Wild About Books and Library Lion at the Waycross College library.

I liked the story in Library Lion aboaut a helpful lion and it included a demonstration of when to suspend the library rules. I didn't like how the librarian in Library Lion looked; too stereotypical. Also, it is an old story because there was a card catalog cabinet in the drawing. I could not decide on a book. I wondered if I should not just buy an item of clothing or a DVD instead.

In the meantime the days were flying by and I had to get this birthday gift into the mail right away. I decided on Library Lion this morning. Gosh, it's hard to choose a kid's book.


What kind of book was I looking for? I wanted a large book, a colorful book, a book with a good story, a book with a positive images, and a book that is age appropriate with easy words that a beginning reader could learn easily.

Nancy Drew Factoids

I found these interesting facts about one of my favorite series as a child:

• Nancy Drew, teen amateur detective, is called Kitty in Sweden.
• Nancy Drew was conceived by Edward Stratemeyer and written by serveral writers using the collective pseudonym, Carolyn Keene. Edward was also behind the Hardy Boys series and the Bobbsey Twins series which were also written using collective pseudonyms. Hardy Boys had the "writer" Franklyn W. Dixon and Bobbsey Twins had the "writer", Laura Lee Hope .
• Mildred Wirt Benson, born Mildred Augustine, was the original writer of the series and she died in 2002.
• Nancy Drew has a facebook page and so does Mildred Benson.

Children's Writer Sarah Ferguson

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has written 26 books? Imagine that! Most of the books are for children. This writer apparently attracted a big crowd at the Book Expo in New York and it was not all about her writing as you can imagine. Link here!

International Digital Children's Library

Check out this digital children's library. There are books from all over the world in various languages and they can be read online.

Graphic Novels by Jeff Kinney

Jeff Kinney and his creation Diary of a Wimpy Kid were featured on the View this morning. I was hearing about this series of graphic novels for children 9 to 12 years old for the first time.