Vote for Three Hens and a Peacock!

Our spring 2011 title Three Hens and a Peacock is a finalist in the Children's Book Council’s 2012 Children’s Choice Book Awards! 

Voting starts today, March 14, 2012! Check it out here and start voting! 

Happy Reading!

World Read Aloud Day with the Peaches!

Today is World Read Aloud Day! Started by the organization LitWorld, it is a day to celebrate and uphold the ever important tradition of reading to kids of all ages and promoting literacy. For ideas on how to get involved and raise awareness, check out their website and get reading! 

Personally, I have so many wonderful memories of being read to as a child. I know for certain that I would be a very different person today had that love of reading not been instilled in me from a young age. I asked my fellow Peaches in the office about their favorite reading memories: 

Julie Paschkis Talks About Mooshka

Author and illustrator Julie Paschkis talks about her inspiration behind her new book Mooshka, on her collaborative blog Books Around the Table.  Mooshka has received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus.


Here's a peek at her blog post (you can read the rest here):

Quilt Pieces

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Julie Paschkis | 9 Comments

A few years ago I began designing fabric for quilt makers. I looked at a lot of quilts for inspiration. The old quilts were especially beautiful and I wondered what stories they  told. If they could only talk they would tell me. That thought inspired my new book which comes out next week from Peachtree:
Mooshka – A Quilt Story.

My mother used to call leftover bits of fabric schnitz, or schnitzerle. This post is about the family schnitz that were used to create this book.

Interested?  Keep reading here.

In like a dragon, out like a...?

It's March! I always loved the adage "In like a lion, out like a lamb" -- it's so accurate. March came sneaking up on us! But at Peachtree, we don't really have any lions. We do have dragons, however...

Don't forget to enter our Library Dragon contest! You have until October of this year and the prize is SUPER exciting!

Here's a sneak peak at the artwork for Return of the Library Dragon, which will be released this fall!

Need a second look at the contest details? Here you go!

To enter:
1. "Like" The Library Dragon on Facebook!

2. Send us a photo or video of yourself in your best Miss Lottie or Lotta Scales costume with a paragraph about why you love the Library Dragon. To enter, post it to our Facebook page or email it to us a publicity@peachtree-online.com so we can post it to our Facebook page!

3. That's it!

Entries will be accepted until 12 p.m. EST on October 31, 2012. Winners will be announced the following week!

PRIZE:

The winner will receive:

•  signed first editions of The Library Dragon and Return of the Library Dragon
• The Library Dragon audio CD and flip-doll
• a Skype visit with author Carmen Agra Deedy
• a signed piece of ORIGINAL artwork by illustrator Michael P. White!  

Good luck everyone!

The Holidays Continue...National Pig Day!

Feeling let down as the excitement of Leap Day becomes a distant memory?  Are you staring at all the torn wrapping paper and your forlorn, tinsel-strung Leap Day tree, wishing that it hadn't been so fleeting?

Well, proving there really is a holiday for everything, today is National Pig Day!  I was alerted to this fact in my morning Shelf Awareness email, and inspired by Quirk Books "Greatest Oinkers in Literature" post.

For all of you not in the know, National Pig Day is a beloved holiday, first introduced in 1972 by sisters Ellen Stanley and Mary Lynne Rave. These porcine pals sought to "accord the pig its rightful, though generally unrecognized, place as one of man's most intellectual domesticated animals."

Now, in perpetuity, we honor these hogs every March 1st -- usually with a nice rack of ribs.  If you're looking to celebrate with a little less sauce, maybe these books will do the trick:

In this quiet picture book, an unlikely trio head out in a small red boat.

Happy Leap Day!

Leap Year happens but once every four years--so take the time out today to celebrate it!  I personally plan on leaping everywhere today instead of walking, and I'll tell you, it's made the office much more interesting today.  


I was trying to decide what books go best with Leap Day, and I thought, "who likes leaping more than frogs?  No one, that's who!"


So in honor of today, the unofficial mascot of Leap Day--the frog.

A Place for Frogs by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Higgins Bond.

Sensational Cynsations!

Meredith and I are featured on Cynsations! Check out our interview here!


Thanks, Cynthia, for hosting us on your blog and for all that you do! (You can check out all of her Cynsational interviews on her blog here!)

SCIRA

We just got back from the South Carolina International Reading Association conference in Myrtle Beach (thus the absence of blog posts last week) and we had a blast! BIG thank you to Adrian Fogelin and Fred Bowen who joined us for the event and had excellent presentations and signings! Another thank you goes out to all of you who stopped by! We had such a fun time getting to know you and talking about your schools! 

This was my first conference at Peachtree so I took lots of pictures of the set up 1. Because it was interesting to me and 2. So I can remember how to do it next time! Herein lies the next installment of our A-Z of Publishing: G is for Grid! 

Get out your crayons!

Susan Stockdale has a new coloring book, featuring illustrations from her wonderful book Bring On the Birds!

The coloring book features 19 drawings for birds based on original illustrations from Susan's picture books. Each illustration is reproduced in a small, color version and as a full-page black line drawing like this:  

The coloring book is available here and make sure to look out for the newest edition of Susan's Fabulous Fishes -- available as a board book for the first time this spring!

 Happy Reading, everyone!

True Romance

It's Valentines Day, and call me sentimental, but it's one of my favorite holidays.  

There are the obvious reasons: it's an excuse to wear red and pink together, eat chocolate for breakfast, and maybe receive your favorite flowers.  But also, it's my time to indulge in some embarrassingly romance novels.   

If you think about it, my love for romance novels probably just stems from my unnatural obsession with fairy tales as a little girl.  I know many a woman who secretly harbors a desire for Prince Charming to show up on his white steed and rescue her (probably from a stack of paperwork and the incessant ringing phone--if she's anything like myself).  

In the Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas, Prince Charming comes in the form of Prince Henrik, a sporty, outdoorsy kind of guy.  And like most of us, he just wants to find someone that loves him for him, not for his fancy title and crown.