Welp, I had grand plans of posting a new picture book review more than once per week. But alas! Homeschooling, freelance editing, children's book writing, cooking, cleaning (and gardening!), eating and sleeping have taken up most of my time. I made this bread...and then ate almost all of it My little hyper-local community (I live on a dead-end street called a "close" in a semi-rural English village) has been actively bolstering each other during the pandemic. Non-quarantining

Hi, everyone! Happy what-day-is-it? As I mentioned here last week, I placed an order to my local independent bookstore, in order to: a) stock up on picture books before I wasn't able to leave the house for long (which, now in the UK, we're not) b) support my local indie bookshop, many of which are going to be struggling to survive at the moment c) support picture book authors and illustrators whose books are publishing in these "wild & uncertain times" Some books from my orde

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, I am thinking of you all and hoping you stay well and safe during the pandemic. I had drafted this blog post over a month ago, back when the world was a different place. I thought about not posting it today. But I am so proud of this project and how it's affected the world in a positive way, that I decided to go ahead. Especially during troubling times, celebrations are still important! It's been exactly two years since A Day in the Life o

Oh my goodness, friends...where to begin? The past couple of weeks have been trying, at best, devastating, at worst. It's more-than-strange to now be writing the words "we are in the middle of a pandemic." I've read lots of apocalyptic novels in my day, but they've all felt very fictional. Until now. In the UK, where I currently live, it's still (as of this moment) somewhat business-as-usual. There is no restriction on movement, like there is for many of my friends in Europe.

Back in November, I delivered an online course to 12x12 Challenge, a group which motivates and inspires its members to write 12 picture book manuscripts throughout the year. Julie Hedlund has been running the group since 2012, and in addition to supporting members in the writing challenge, she also provides wonderful resources to its members, like the webinar series for which I was a guest speaker. The talk I gave was called "Picture Book Yoga: Bending Twisting and Stretching

This Friday morning, the sun is shining through the window of my home office, my kids shouted "Fri-YAY!" all the way to school, and I'm already looking forward to the weekend (and celebrating Ed Brydon's birthday)! This is the view from my office window today, with a little glimpse into what I've been working on this week... Fridays also feel like the perfect day to look back and take stock in what you've done during the week...and even further in the past. Since I started Al