Answering today's If You Ask Me... Q&A are 13-year-old Laurèl from Patterson, NY and 12-year-old Michelle Park from Glendale, CA. Aside from their adoration of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, they also discuss Shannon Hale, Carolyn Mackler and Kate DiCamillo's THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX. Check out their responses below.
Ben Bradlee and his son, Quinn, spent plenty of time together working outdoors, sharing family stories. One day, they decided that they ought to be writing this all down while explaining the virtues that made them not just father and son, but best friends.
What made you decide to write together?
Ben Bradlee: A chance like this comes along once in a lifetime and I grabbed it!
On to Part 4 of our series on Hot Fall Book Club Picks from the BEA panel a couple of weeks ago. Hard to believe all this great information came out of just one talk. Imagine how much total book knowledge was in that place!! I'm still kind of overwhelmed trying to get my head around all the new authors, titles and technologies I heard about! But back to this series. Next up at the panel was Talia Sherer (rhymes with terror), the Director of Library Marketing, Adult Trade for MacMillan. She presented some great titles:
Christina Olds’ childhood was atypical, raised on Air Force bases around the world, but it helped create an inseparable bond with her father Robin. As she got older, Christina learned of her father’s storied career as a fighter pilot during World War II and the Vietnam War. Soon, Christina was helping her father pen his memoirs and recounting their lives around the world.
In this excerpt from his bestseller, MANHOOD FOR AMATEURS: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Father, Husband and Son, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon talks about the often overlooked tasks of a mother, and the pride he takes in them as a Dad.
In today's post, regular contributor Heather Johnson (Storie delle Sorelle Book Club Blog) shares her book club's experience with a great book. I read this one a couple years back and really enjoyed it though never thought of it for a book club pick. Nice to see that Heather was thinking outside the box!
June 11, 2010
I love my office in New York. It’s painted the color of my living room and dining room at home. I chose those colors for the office since I spend very little time in my living room or dining room --- I joke that I can count the days we use them each year, and they usually are smashed between November and January. I have this great dining room table IN my office so I can have meetings and lunches there. I even have turquoise dishes in my office for entertaining. It’s also great space for having people drop by --- one of my favorite things. This week Carol Cassella was in town from Seattle, and we spent some time on Tuesday chatting up her upcoming book, HEALER, which I am crazy about. Katie Arnoldi was in from California, and Wednesday we caught up on the excitement surrounding her book, POINT DUME, which landed on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list the first week it was out. During the writing of this book, Katie had shared with me stories about the Mexican drug cartels who are growing marijuana on federal and state lands. A good look at her research can be found here in the Times this week.
June 2010
Summer vacation has started for many of you, and for others it is just around the corner (my son, who is a freshman in high school, is in what I call "the countdown.") Now is the perfect time to prep your personal summer reading lists in anticipation of the wonderfully long and lazy days ahead! He has two lists for me. The first is the required summer reading list, which he dreads. I think the word "required" should not be in any phrase with the word "summer."
