The End is Near

The end of the year has come, bringing with it, among other things, Best Books of the Year lists. I’m very happy that Moonshot appears on several: Kirkus Reviews’ Best Children’s Books of 2009 (Requiescat in pace, Kirkus), Book Links’ Lasting Connections of 2009, School Library Journal’s Best Books 2009, Horn Book Magazine’s Fanfare Best Books of 2009, Booklist’s Editors’ Choice 2009, and the Washington Post’s Best Kids Books of 2009.

My sincere thanks to all, and best wishes to all for 2010!

Above: an alternate sketch for Moonshot’s Mission Control page. Looking at this again I’m reminded how hard it was to choose an angle for the drawing. For some of us, Mission Control looks good from any point of view.

Merry Christmas

I’ve posted this video, “Christmas Cheer for the Lightshipmen,” on my web site in the past, but I still like it, so here it is again. Happy holidays to all, on land and sea (and space), and best wishes for 2010!

The Racecar Alphabet book dummy

Recently I was tweaking my school visit slide show, or what we used to call slide shows. These days I give my presentation using Apple’s Keynote program; no slides are harmed. A benefit to having the show on a computer instead of in a carousel is that video can be incorporated into the talk, and after years of fumbling to show a roomful of students what a book dummy looks like — my old dummies tend to fall apart as they’re being held up — it occurred to me that I could instead or also simply show some video of a dummy in action.

Here, then, is the dummy I submitted when I pitched The Racecar Alphabet. (You can see the video in higher resolution on YouTube here.) When laying out a book now I sometimes fiddle with InDesign but the media here is strictly old school: pen, ink, pencil, paper, photocopies, tracing paper, tape, glue, staples.

More about The Racecar Alphabet is on my web site here, and images from the final book are here.

Moonshot on The Early (Too Early) Show

Here’s a great way to start the day: Jon Scieszka sharing holiday book ideas — including Moonshot — on CBS’s The Early Show. (A great way to be told that the day started, actually. I don’t get up early enough for this sort of thing, and let’s not talk about my television reception.)

Brooklyn signing

I’ll be reading and signing Moonshot and signing The True Gift at Brooklyn’s BookCourt bookstore on Sunday, December 6, from 11 AM to Noon. The address is 163 Court Street, between Dean and Pacific. The store’s web site is here. Come on by!