For those of you in the Atlanta, GA area, I will be part of the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. I am very excited, not least because Jonathan Franzen will be the keynote speaker (will his new book live up to all the lavish praise? I hope so. I liked The Corrections, and just picked up Freedom yesterday). I’ll be speaking at the Children’s Stage this Saturday, Sept 4, at 4:00 pm. Here is a handy map to locate the Children’s Stage.

In other news, I’m back in the country and glad for it. Also, I’ve read Mockingjay. I can’t say much without risking spoilers, but I thought it was very good, and the ending made sense to me. When I closed the book, I thought that the characters had developed and resolved in ways that felt true. I guess if anyone wants to respond to that, we can take our spoliery conversation to the comments section.

Next on my reading list: either Tana French’s Faithful Place, David Mitchell’s new book, or Rita Garcia-Williams’s One Crazy Summer. I can’t decide!

Now, for your viewing pleasure…

Analine at La Lucho Libra Library in Texas has created a trailer for The Cabinet of Wonders. Thanks so much, Analine, for doing this, and for letting me share the video:

Also, an adorable photograph of Eliot driving a playground train:

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The blog post title is how Eliot (my 20 month old son) says his current favorite book, Frog and Toad are Friends.

“Cookies” (shown above) was his favorite story for a while (I love it as well, and cheer Toad on when he says that Frog can have all the will power to resist cookies. Toad wants none for himself: “I am going home now to bake a cake.” You said it, Toad!). Now it’s the much darker “The Dream,” in which Toad learns the pleasure and guilt of being applauded while his best friend grows smaller and smaller. Eliot loves to say, “Poor Toad!” when Toad realizes he’s made Frog disappear.

I really, really wish I had more Frog and Toad with me, because I know all of these stories by heart now (when Eliot dislocated his elbow, all he wanted for the entire ride to the hospital was to hear “Cookies” over and over). I will have to buy them all on my return to the US.

Other Eliot favorites:

The Snowy Day

The House in the Night

Tumble Bumble

This Little Chick

Goodnight Moon (but he doesn’t like me to read it to him, he likes me to recite it to him in the dark while he falls asleep)

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First, a few links:

I have a new guilty pleasure, and it is called the Buffy Fashion Roulette. What is this, you may ask? Witty blog posts that each feature an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The clothes of all essential characters are considered, cheered, and winced at, with the ultimate goal of giving blog readers a chance to vote on Best Dressed and Worst Dressed. Great fun. The ep “Buffy v. Dracula” is up. I voted for Joyce as Best Dressed just because her clothes hit the right note, as the blogger notes, of Everymom. I gave Riley Worst Dressed (I’d give Riley Worst Everything). But don’t let my votes influence you! Check it out for yourself.

Though, p.s., I kind of like the Elmo shirt Willow wears in “After Life.” I wouldn’t wear it myself, but it’s great entertainment to see it on Will.

More links!

Curious to know what’s on my MG-YA reading list these days? La Lucha Libro Library has put together a blog post of what various authors are reading. Here it is.

Lastly, here is a link to an interview Elise Broach (author of Shakespeare’s Secret and Masterpiece) and I did with Sheela Chari of the blog From the Mixed-up Files…The blog is dedicated to all things Middle Grade Lit, and Sheela is herself a writer of the upcoming Vanished (July 2011). The interview is about writing mysteries, weaving in historical elements, and what it means to be a good reader.

So, back to what I’ve been reading lately:

It’s about pretty, popular, and not particularly nice Samantha, who dies in a car crash. Or, at least, she thinks she does. Because even after her death, she goes on living—the same day, over and over. A reviewer wisely said that this book is almost a hybrid of Mean Girls and Groundhog Day (one of my favorites), but it’s also more thoughtful than either one, and has a poignancy that’s one of its main strengths.

Lauren Oliver takes on—and succeeds at—the difficult task of making a reader like a narrator who comes off as very unlikeable. When Sam is at her most selfish, she still has a dry humor that makes it hard not to laugh along with her, even if its at another character’s expense (which is rather the point, since the book is a great deal about how and why we are led to ridicule others). Sam’s voice is very appealing (it almost reminds me of Daisy from How I Live Now). A typical line:

“To be honest, the only sporting event I ever go to is homecoming, and after hour years I still don’t understand any of the rules.”

The characters are all really well drawn (Kent is particularly endearing, and an unusual male lead), and I think one of the things that makes the project of the book so successful is its awareness of the fact that we like to see variations on a theme. I found myself really looking forward to the parts of Sam’s day. I wanted to see what she would do to make each day different, and how certain scenes would replay themselves.

Also, Lauren Oliver has a good sense for special moments. There are times in life when you already feel nostalgic in a beautiful moment, because it will slip away. Oliver gets that, and offers some hope that those moments can’t be lost.

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Recently I was chatting with my friend and fellow writer Daphne Grab about Madeleine L’Engle and the book A Ring of Endless Light.

It was one of my absolute favorites growing up, and hers, too. We sighed about how romantic Adam Eddington is (or was. I haven’t read this book in ages, so I don’t know if I’d be as adoring of him now as I was when I was twelve). I’ve been thinking about the name Adam, and how to me, it suggests a winner of a boyfriend. Adam: as in, the first man ever. The one, the true original. I also love Adam from Gayle Forman’s lovely If I Stay. He is a hero.

Now, given the obvious—that writers choose the names of their characters, and that you can have a reasonable amount of confidence there’s a connection with the name and how the characters are shaped—what do the names of literary boyfriends suggest to you? It’s pretty clear, for example, that Vicky’s boyfriend Zachary in Ring is a bad boy. His name says it all!

By the way, I have to call an end to the Chinese stickers contest (previous post)…I’ll be sending a copy to RachelJ, because it seems like her two children are very into visualizing aspects of the novel. Thanks, all, for your sticker suggestions!

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My book tour with Elise Broach is now over, and I had a great time. Thanks to all of the amazing bookstores and schools that hosted me, and to everyone who came to a reading! Thanks also to Tor.com for inviting me to guest blog.

Classes have ended, so I should have much more free time on my hands—and I do, but somehow not quite as much as I’d hoped. I still have a pile of papers and exams to grade. But I really can’t complain. All in all, I have the time I need to do something very necessary: finish the third and final book in the Kronos Chronicles series. Yes, the adventures of Petra, Astrophil, and their friends are winding to a close, and I’m really pushing to finish the first draft, because

A) I have a DEADLINE. And it is SOON. EEK.

B) I, you know, WANT to finish it.

C) The sooner I finish it, the sooner I’ll see what awesome cover David Frankland will create for it. Hurray for my cover artist! He’s the best.

Now, the thing about my foreign editions is that I never know when they’re coming out. Copies show up at my door, and then I realize, oh yeah, okay, there they are. They’re out and about in the Dutch (or German, or whatever the case may be) world. Last week I got my French copies of The Celestial Globe (my French in-laws are psyched about that one) and my Chinese copies of The Cabinet of Wonders. And let me tell you, the Chinese book is SO COOL. Not just because it’s written in all these pretty characters I’ll never be able to read, but also because….

It has STICKERS.

That’s right. Check them out:

It is so cool (and the dopey expression on Atalanta’s face is very close to the one I see in my head when I write her character). It seriously begs the question: why don’t all books for younger children have stickers?

My Chinese books are not long for this world. I peeled off the Marvel with the wasp and stuck it on Eliot’s hand and he was stunned with joy. Now he drags the books off the shelves and attacks the sticker pages. He also has fun turning to my photo (in the paperback English version, which he sometimes thinks has stickers in it, because it shares a cover with the Chines one) and saying, “Mama.” I’ve been kind of amazed at how he’s been able to identify me in some photos. Like my passport photo? How on earth can he recognize that that’s me? It’s HORRIBLE. It looks nothing like me.

Then again, he flipped to the back of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, pointed to her picture, and said, “Mama.” I’m not sure if that means he thinks that I look like her, or if he really thinks that’s me. Too bad I didn’t write The Help! I’m reading it now, and it’s really, really good.

I’ll say more about it when I’ve finished, but for now I’ll just say that I’m impressed at how Stockett has created three different first person voices that are each distinct and pretty much equally appealing. I’m always sorry to shift from one to another, and yet always happy, too. Though, well, I think I like Aibileen’s voice the best. Then again, Minny made me laugh out loud, and I almost never do that with books.

Of course, this is not a book that should have stickers with it. But, back to the whole stickers thing…

In your opinion, which children’s books need stickers? What would the stickers look like?

I’ll tell you what: whoever comes up with the best description of stickers for a book will receive a signed Chinese copy from me. Yes, you probably won’t be able to read it, but….you will have STICKERS. You want them? Comment below!

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