I know, I know, I know. It has been a shamefully long while since I have posted something here. All I can say in my defense is that I went back to teaching in September after a year’s leave and have discovered that between work, my one-year-old son, and writing, I have very little time for anything else. If I get a free moment, I usually buckle down and work away at my new novel. Today, however, I reached a point in my plot where it’s maybe a good idea to step back a little and mentally sort things out before going forward. I don’t have anything fancy to say here today, but will share some news.

First of all, here is the cover for the sequel to The Cabinet of Wonders. The new book is called The Celestial Globe and it’s a mix of a murder mystery and adventure on the high seas.

I LOVE the cover. David Frankland is my hero.

In other news, The Cabinet of Wonders has been selected for the following state master lists (which, if you don’t know—and I didn’t—is a list of 20-30 books a state recommends that kids read, and then usually the kids vote on which one they like best): the Utah Beehive Award, the Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the Kansas William Allen White Award, and the Texas Bluebonnet Award. I LOVE Utah, Vermont, Kansas, and Texas! Thank you, you charming states, you!

As 2009 draws to a close, I look fondly back at my favorite novels from this year (in alphabetical order): Kristin Cashore’s Fire, Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, Francisco Stork’s Marcello in the Real World, and Laini Taylor’s Lips Touch. Brilliant, all (I feel like I’m forgetting one of my favorites, though. Hmmm…). Marcelo was the most recent of the reads, and so the freshest in my memory. The novel is about a teenage boy with high-functioning Asperger’s who is forced to work in his father’s law firm and spend a summer living in “the real world,” which turns out to be full of cruelty, confusion, humor, and courage. One of the things I liked best about the novel (aside from Marcelo himself. He’s one of those narrators you fall deeply in love with) is the way Stork describes how people communicate emotion, and how that emotion is interpreted. It’s perhaps ironic that Marcelo, because of his condition, must think carefully about how to interpret the faces people present to him, but all he does it what “normal” people do every day: do our best to make sense of how the people around us feel. I predict the novel will win some kind of Printz Award.

Now I’m reading Let the Great World Spin, by Collum McCann (an adult novel) and am really, really looking forward to laying my hot little hands on the ARC of Megan Whalen Turner’s new novel, A Conspiracy of Kings. Soon, soon! Squee!