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A conversation between Jay Asher and Trudy Ludwig the 50 States Against Bullying tour, bullying, teen suicide and how to create kinder and more caring communities.

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In Virals, acclaimed mother and son writing duo Kathy and Brendan Reichs have created a captivating and enthralling series by incorporating science fiction and crime with a contemporary perspective, via 4 teens who are navigating an unusually adventurous adolescence.

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Time seems to be just running away this long awaited spring! Part of the race for CATugeau Agency was run in NYC recently…the first visitation trip Christy and I have done together.  Thank you to the wonderfully welcoming editors and AD’s at Penguin Group’s Grosset & Dunlap, Dial and Viking for letting us practice on you! :) I think Christy thinks this is all FUN! and I think I agree.

We started with a very special, fun lunch at Westville Hudson with our four NYC artists. They surprised Christy with a silver pin with two cats sitting together! So perfect and she wore it all day! Thank you CAT gals…

left to right: Melissa Iwai, Lisa Fields, Christy Tugeau Ewers (coral sweater), Chris Tugeau (me!), Heather Maione, Nina Mata

The next day we started BEA at the early Children’s Breakfast…always special and inspirational. Then we ‘walked the halls’ seeing publishing people from out of town, and literally bumping into others from ‘town.’  Always fun.  We loved seeing so many great children’s books displayed (though I might have picked up a couple of ‘advance’ adult books too!) We passed out lots of our BEA BOOK BRAG SHEET too.  Here it is for you to peruse as well. We’re very proud! Hope you’ll check them out at your local bookstore.

So now the follow-ups are done, and we’re settling back into the ‘day to day.’ Oh I almost forgot - Christy and 6 other of our artists have a new email Blast about ready for June’s “Adopt a CAT Month!” How perfect is that?  come back soon to see that one…. and of course, we wish all a HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!                    image by Michelle Hazelwood

 

 

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The Chronicles of Egg, Book 3:  Blue Sea Burning

by Geoff Rodkey

G. P. Putnam’s Sons               4/03/2014

an imprint of Penguin Group

978-0-399-25787-2

Age 8 to 12        376 pages

“After narrowly escaping the New Lands, Egg is determined to take down ruthless slave trader Roger Pembroke. But war is brewing among the Blue Sea’s pirate gangs—and Egg, Guts, and Kira are running out of time to find the Fire King’s treasure and free the Okalu slaves from the silver mine on Sunrise. Can they save Kira’s people before Sunrise is plundered by Ripper Jones’s pirates? Will Burn Healy save the day, or has the legendary captain finally met his match? And will Egg ever win back Millicent from the annoyingly handsome Cyril?  

“This explosive conclusion to Egg’s journey delivers the ultimate combination of humor, heart, and white-knuckle adventure.”

Opening

“Burn Healy’s pirate ship was sinking. And we were on it.”

The Story

Blue Sea Burning, the third and final installment of The Chronicle of Egg begins where book 2 ended. Roger Pembroke had raided Pella Nonna, making himself governor. His first official act involved Egg and a noose. The people gathered, the “new” army gathered, and Pembroke gave his first official speech justifying why he should, no, why it is imperative that this child should die, despite the mercy to children law everyone, including pirates, followed.

Burn Healy walked up and, using the same law, saved Egg. Egg and his “new” Uncle Burn walk the gangway together onto Healy’s ship. Heading to Deadweather Island for much needed repairs, a little R & R, and dropping off the reformed Adonis. He had plans to take over the ugly fruit plantation—with Egg’s help, but Egg found himself sidetracked and back on the Grift with Guts, Kira, and Quint, the plantation cook, now the ship’s carpenter.

Egg still wants to take down Pembroke and get back into Millicent’s life. Kira wants to avenge her tribe’s devastation and take down Pembroke. Guts, he wants to go wherever Kira goes, and take down Pembroke. Burn Healy wants to fix his ship, appease his crew, avoid Li Homaya and Ripper Jones—both are out to get him. Aboard the Grift, they all took off for Sunrise Island, where Healy will withdraw his ten million and appease his crew. Of course, things do not always go as planned for Egg and those around him. It was time Egg, Guts, and Kira had some good luck, but will they?

Review

I was so thrilled to find Egg on my doorstep. Who would have thunk that one day I would say this and mean it? I loved the first two books and could not wait for the final instalment. Just like the first two, there is action to keep you on the edge of your seat. There are a few “aw” moments when things finally take a turn for the better. The journey is a gloriously long one, which I wish had not ended . . . at least not the way it did. I found it disappointing after all that Egg had been through, but happy endings are not required in middle grade novels. Oh, wait, they really are. Truth is[SM1] , the ending is happy, just not the happy I wanted to read. But, no spoilers here. I can’t say what I didn’t like about the ending, though I wish I could. So, after you read Blue Sea Burning, please send me an email, let me know what you thought and I will reveal what I thought that I wouldn’t say now. I wonder whether there might be a fourth book, or maybe a new tale. One can hope.

Not read book 1 or 2? Want to skip to the third? It’s possible. Egg, a wonderful narrator, fills in enough background that you can read book 3 first and enjoy it. I think you’ll then go to book 1 and 2 then possibly repeat book 3. I don’t recommend it, but it is your choice. However, you want to read the series is up to you, but read it. If you like pirates, those sneaky, sleazy, scoundrels, you will enjoy The Chronicle of Egg. Throw in a secret source of power and greed, and the men who want it more than anything else, and you get a dystopian world that is not far from reality.

There is violence but nothing gruesome or highly detailed that I would not allow a boy, or girl, age 8 read the series. Rodkey knows how to write for middle graders and make it riveting for all levels of reading and maturity. It is difficult at times to believe this is Rodkey’s debut, which he calls a “comedy-adventure.” His world is believable and not far from the lay of the land here. Could this have been how the world once worked? Book 1 is an easier read than 2, and 2 easier than 3, as I think it should be. Kids change a lot from age 8 to 12, as do their reading abilities The Chronicle of Egg grows with them.

If you like good ole’ pirate action, from the pirates and non-pirates, family relationships that grow, and a happy ending (that may or may not lead to a new book), you will love The Chronicle of Egg. The characters will grow on you and you will miss them between books. There are no illustrations—wouldn’t those have been so cool!—but you will see nearly everything in your mind’s eye. It is hard not to see, and sometimes feel, the action. The best thing to hope for, after finishing the series, is a big production movie. I don’t know if the series has been optioned, but The Chronicle of Egg would make a great grand movie. Until then, enjoy your time at sea, at Deadweather Island, at Sunrise, and all the lands in between. Finally, keep your eyes and ears open, I hear tell there are pirates on the loose.

THE CHRONICLE OF EGG, BOOK 3: BLUE SEA BURNING. Text copyright © 2014 by Geoff Rodkey. Reviewed by permission of the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, NY.

Learn more about The Chronicle of Egg HERE.

Buy the series at Amazon—B&N—Penguin Group—your local bookstore.

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Meet the author, Geoff Rodkey a his website:  http://geoffrodkey.com/                                                                                 “A Word from Author Geoff Rodkey”

Follow the publisher at the G. P. Putnam’s Sons‘ twitter:  https://twitter.com/PutnamBooks

Find more books at G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group.

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Filed under: 5stars, Middle Grade, Series Tagged: children's book revieews, comedy-adventure, Egg, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Geoff Rodkey, high seas, island kings, Penguin Group, pirates, ruthless villian Roger Pembroke, treasure maps

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This week, we have an amazing batch of openings for you. Penguin Group is looking for a new director of digital publishing, and Hachette Book Group needs a mobile analyst. The American Library Association is hiring a senior production editor, while Rodale Books is seeking an editorial director. Get the details on these jobs and more below, and find additional just-posted publishing gigs on mediabistro.com.

• Director, Digital Publishing Penguin Group (New York, NY)
• Mobile Analyst Hachette Book Group (New York, NY)
• Editorial Director Rodale Books (New York, NY)
• Senior Production Editor American Library Association (Chicago, IL)
• Managing Editor, Children’s Books Highlights for Children (Honesdale, PA)

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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This week, Amazon is hiring a designer/producer for Kindle marketing, while Emerson College is looking for a department chair for writing, literature and publishing. Fodors.com needs a new product manager, and Penguin is seeking a manager of gift sales. Get the details on these great jobs and more below, and find additional openings on mediabistro.com.

• Designer/Producer, Kindle Marketing Amazon (Seattle, WA)
• Product Manager Fodors.com (New York, NY)
• Manager, Gift Sales Penguin Group (New York, NY)
• Sales Account Representative Guilford Press (New York, NY)
• Department Chair, Writing Literature, Publishing Emerson College (Boston, MA)

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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This week, Random House has a brand-new opening for an imprint sales manager, and Penguin is on the hunt for an eBook production editor/managing editor. BowTie Inc. has a great book sales manager position available, and Oxford University Press is hiring an online editor. Check out these publishing jobs and more below, and find additional new openings on mediabistro.com.

• Imprint Sales Manager Random House (New York, NY)
• Book Sales Manager BowTie Inc. (New York, NY)
• Online Editor Oxford University Press (New York, NY)
• Book Designer Interweave (Loveland, CO)
• eBook Production Editor/Managing Editor Penguin Group (New York, NY)

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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The book publishing industry is bracing itself for another scandal as one of the best-selling authors in recent years has been accused of fabricating parts of a popular memoir.

Greg Mortenson has been catapulted to celebrity since the 2006 publication of Three Cups of Tea, (Penguin Book Publishers) which he said was a non-fiction account of his travels in Pakistan. The book describes how in 1992, he got lost while descending from an attempt on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, and was taken in by a group of villagers.

Mr Mortenson wrote that to repay that hospitality, he founded the Central Asia Institute, a non-profit foundation that builds schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Three Cups of Tea, which has sold more than 4m copies, was published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin. Penguin, like the Financial Times, is owned by Pearson.

On Friday, 60 Minutes, the CBS news programme, aired a segment that called into question the veracity of many of the stories central to the book. On Monday, author Jon Krakauer, who appeared in the 60 Minutes segment, released a digital booklet Three Cups of Deceit, which chronicles what he says are fabricated parts of Mr Mortenson’s books.

Viking said it would review the book and its contents with Mr Mortenson. “Greg Mortenson’s work as a humanitarian in Afghanistan and Pakistan has provided tens of thousands of children with an education. 60 Minutes is a serious news organisation and in the wake of their report, Viking plans to carefully review the materials with the author,” it said.

If the story is proved to be even partly fabricated, it would be another black eye for the book publishers industry: several works of non-fiction have been shown to be at least partly fictionalised in recent years. Other examples include James Frey’s, A Million Little Pieces published by Random House Book Publishers, that became the investigative subject of the smoking gun website exposing the supposedly non-fiction book as largely fictional.

The 60 Minutes report pointed to several passages that it says are exaggerated or fabricated. It suggested Mr Mortenson did not visit Korphe, the village he describes in the book, until a year after his descent from K2.

In statements to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, in his home town of Bozeman, Montana, Mr Mortenson acknowledged he had taken literary licence in parts of the story. “The time about our final days on K2 and ongoing journey to Korphe village and Skardu is a compressed version of events that took place in the fall of 1993.”

The 60 Minutes report also claimed that a group of Pakistani men who Mr Mortenson said were members of the Taliban who had kidnapped him, were in fact lawyers and other professionals, who were assigned to protect him.

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Today we bring you our weekly sampler of the cool youth media and marketing gigs. If your company has an open position in the youth media or marketing space, we encourage you to join the Ypulse LinkedIn group, if you haven’t yet, and post there... Read the rest of this post

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For the book publishers and authors perspective, Borders was once a worthy rival to Barnes & Noble. Perhaps even bigger than B&N. The two brick-and-mortar chain bookstores were able to offer better prices than independent bookstores and drove many out of business. But that was before the success of Amazon and other online retailers brought the phrase “brick and mortar” into regular use — and once that happened, everything changed; indeed many UK book publishers watched in horror last year the UK divison of Borders hit the wall.

Barnes & Noble, if buffeted by Amazon’s success, has remained afloat; Borders has been taking on water.

On Dec. 30 Borders announced it would not make payments owed to some publishers, without specifying whom. Hachette confirmed that it was among those who would not be paid by Borders.

Borders has nearly 200 Waldenbooks and Borders Express outlets slated for closure before the month of January is out. Additional Borders stores are also set to close, including Westwood’s.

Borders is also cutting back on staff. On Wednesday, Borders announced that it would close a distribution center in Tennessee, eliminating more than 300 jobs; 15 management positions were eliminated Friday. And the resignation of two top executives — the chief information officer and general counsel — was announced at the beginning of 2011.

Meanwhile, Borders is seeking to restructure its debt like the frantic chess of a brutal endgame. On Thursday, Borders met with publishers and proposed that the payments owed by the bookseller be reclassified as a loan, as part of that refinancing. “But on Friday, publishers remained skeptical of the proposal put forth by Borders,” the New York Times reports. “One publisher said that the proposal was not enough to convince the group that Borders had found a way to revive its business, and that they were less optimistic than ever that publishers could return to doing business with Borders.”

Nevertheless, Borders — which lost money in the first three quarters of 2010 — remains the second-largest bookstore chain by revenue. Its loss would have a significant effect on book publishers across the United States.

Investors, however, seem cheered by the recent news swirling around Borders. Shares rose 12% on Thursday after reports that the bookseller was close to securing financing.

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The parents of Madeleine McCann are writing a book about their daughter’s disappearance and their so-far unsuccessful efforts to trace her.

A deal has been signed with book publishers Transworld which is an imprint of Random House UK. Few details have been revealed but Kate and Gerry McCann are receiving a “substantial” advance and “enhanced royalties” which gives the couple a bigger than normal share of the profits from sales.

The book is already part-written. Kate McCann said it had been a difficult decision but the money it raised would go directly to the McCanns’ official fund to look for Madeleine.

“My reason for writing is simple – to give an account of the truth,” she said. “With the depletion of Madeleine’s Fund, it is a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands.”

Hopeful

Gerry McCann said he was hopeful the publication would help the ongoing efforts to find out what had happened to their daughter, who went missing from their holiday apartment in the Portugese resort of Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007, as her parents dined with friends nearby.

“Our hope is that it may prompt those who have relevant information – knowingly or not – to come forward and share it with our team. Somebody holds that key piece of the jigsaw.”

The book publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr of Transworld, is more than happy with the deal and sees the book – expected to retail at £20 – as a big seller.

“It is an enormous privilege to be publishing this book” he said. “We are so pleased to be joining Kate and Gerry McCann in the Find Madeleine campaign.”

There are also expected to be newspaper serialisations around the publication date, believed to be 28 April 2011 which would coincide with the fourth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.

The official Portuguese inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008, although private detectives employed by the McCanns have continued the search.

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This week Mr. Rosenthal is celebrating a happy landing. On Tuesday morning, it was announced that come January he will be running his own boutique imprint at Penguin Group USA, arguably the healthiest of the big New York Book Publishers as well as home to a number of the 56-year-old’s former colleagues. Once he gets going, Mr. Rosenthal—whose roster at Simon & Schuster included Bob Woodward, David McCullough, Bob Dylan and Jim Cramer—will be on charge of a small but full-fledged operation at Penguin Book Publishers, with dedicated publicity and marketing muscle and a list totaling somewhere between 24 and 36 books per year.

Mr. Rosenthal, an executive known for his eclectic tastes and blunt manner, has published a long list of authors in his 25-year career, including Bob Dylan, James Carville, Jeffery Deaver and Bob Woodward.

Many of those writers will be fair game as Mr. Rosenthal begins to acquire books for his own imprint, setting up competition between Penguin and Simon & Schuster.

Over lunch on Tuesday at the Half King in Chelsea, Mr. Rosenthal said Penguin president Susan Petersen Kennedy reached out to him shortly after his firing, and had been “aggressive and enthusiastic” in their talks. He is stoked to go work for her, he said: “People at Penguin don’t bitch about their place of employ nearly as much as people elsewhere. Everybody says, ‘The only person you ever want to work for in publishing anymore is Susan.’”

Initially, Mr. Rosenthal considered another path after he was canned—doing something Web-related, for instance, or becoming a packager, a consultant or “a guru of some kind”—but in the end he resolved to stick with traditional book publishing. It wasn’t a self-evident decision, if only because book sales have been falling so severely in recent years that many in the industry are panicked about the long-term viability of their business.

“He has a lot of people he’s been working with for many, many years,” Susan Petersen Kennedy, the president of Penguin Group USA, said in an interview on Monday. “And perhaps at some point, some of them will join him.”

Mr. Rosenthal’s imprint, which has yet to be named, will publish two to three dozen books each year, a mix of nonfiction and fiction.

“I’m going to make lots of trouble,” Mr. Rosenthal said in an interview. “They’re going to let me go after the kind of — I wouldn’t say quirky — but the peculiar stuff that I sometimes like. What they want very much is for me to be able to indulge my passions, indulge my taste.”

For more than a decade, Penguin has focused on creating imprints that reflect the visions and interests of their book publishers, like Riverhead Books, Portfolio and Penguin Press, an imprint created by Ann Godoff after she was fired from Random House in 2003.

Book Publishers have been under pressure from the recession and a depressed retail environment, making it an unlikely time to expand.

“They’re being contrarian, which I like,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “Everybody seems to be having misgivings about where this whole thing is going. They’re obviously making a bet. They’re expanding, and it’s great to be part of that.”

Before joining Simon & Schuster, Mr. Rosenthal had been the publisher of Villard, a division of Random House Book Publishers; the managing editor of Rolling Stone; the executive editor of New York magazine; and, as Penguin noted in a news release on Monday, an employee in the morgue at the city chief medical examiner’s office.

In June, Mr. Ros

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To celebrate the release of John Sanford's 20th Prey novel, Storm Prey, on May 18, 2010, TLC Book Tours organized this special book tour that covers all of the earlier Prey novels starring Detective Lucas Davenport.

From May 3 until May 18, bloggers answer a few questions about each of the earlier Lucas Davenport novels for leading up to Storm Prey's release. To celebrate Storm Prey's release, the publisher is sponsoring a giveaway of the book that I'm focusing on today, Sudden Prey, & an advanced reader's copy of the soon to be released Storm Prey! Every blog participating in this tour will be giving away one of the earlier Prey novels and an ARC of the latest Storm Prey. So head over to Penguin's Days of Prey site at www.penguin.com/stormprey where you can learn more about John Sanford, Detective Lucas Davenport, read excerpt of the 19 Prey novels, and link to the participating blogs to read reviews and join book contests.

Today, at Starting Fresh, we're focusing on Sudden Prey, the 8th book in the Lucas Davenport series.


Title and series number of the book:
Sudden Prey, #8 in the Lucas Davenport series
ISBN-10: 0425157539

Year published: 1997
genre: detective mystery/thriller

About Lucas Davenport

What is Lucas doing when he first appears in the book? Set up the scene.
We hear about Lucas Davenport before he appears on the scene. In downtown Minneapolis, men are shadowing a 30-something blond woman who seems to be aimlessly window shopping during the Christmas rush. The woman's movements have the men on alert and man suddenly says that it's time to call in Lucas Davenport. Davenport arrives, dons a bulletproof vest, makes small talk as he scopes out the area.

Give us a sense of time and place.
The story opens in Minneapolis, during the holiday season, in the 1990s.

What is Lucas's occupation or professional role?
A deputy chief and political appointee.
His sideline software business makes him independently wealthy.

Lucas's personal status (single, dating, married)
In a serious relationship with Weather Karkinnen.

Lucas Davenport is a known clothes horse - did you notice any special fashion references?
"He was wearing a blue wool suit, a white shirt with a long soft collar and what looked like an Hermes necktie -- one of the ana

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I was so excited when I was offered a review copy of Jean Kwok's debut novel, Girl in Translation. The book sounded so interesting (and the cover is gorgeous)! I am glad to say that I loved the book even more than I'd hoped.


The blurb:
What is it like to be surrounded every day by a language and culture you only half understand? How would it change your life?

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, they speak no English and own nothing but debt. Kimberly's talent for school does not pay the bills, and she quickly begins a double life, carefully hidden from the outside world: an exceptional student by day, she is a Chinatown sweatshop worker by evening and weekend. Disguising the most difficult truths of her life -- her staggering poverty, the weight of her family's expectations, her love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition -- Kimberly learns to translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the two worlds she straddles.

Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, Girl in Translation is an inspiring debut about a young immigrant in America, a smart girl balancing schoolwork and factory labor, custom and desire, a girl who is forced at young age to take responsibility for her family's future, with decisions that she may later regret. Through Kimberly, we feel the shock of a new world and the everyday struggles and sacrifices of recent immigrants -- and through her, we learn to understand how these experiences can ultimately shape a life and the choices one make.

Like Kimberly Chang, author Jean Kwok emigrated to Hong Kong as a young girl, and she brings to the page the story of countless others who have been caught among the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires. Written in an unforgettable voice that dramatizes the tensions of a girl growing up between two worlds, Girl in Translation is a story of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

Review:
When Kimberly Chang and her widowed mother move to New York from Hong Kong, they are heavily in debt and dependent on her aunt for housing and employment. The adjustment is tough - she'd previously at the top of her class in Hong Kong and well loved but now finds herself looked at with suspicion by her new teacher Mr. Bogart. Kimberly doesn't let Mr. Bogart's disdain keep her down. Her days brighten when she makes friends of her own: Matt, another Chinese kid working at the garments factory, and Annette, a friendly girl in her class in school who shares her sense of humor.

The details of Kimberly's life would be depressing but for Kimberly's attitude and spirit. Kimberly and her mother have each other and when they're together, the smallest things cheer them up and give them hope. Living in a condemned and rodent infested apartment without heat, the two Changs somehow make it through. As Kimberly slowly finds ways to improve their situation, you'll find yourself touched by this story of sacrifice, love, loyalty, and perseverance.

I loved Girl in Translation - Kimberly's story and her voice stayed with me long after I finished the book. I've been fortunate to find a lot of good books in the last year, but this one stands out.

ISBN-10: 1594487561 - Hardcover$25.95
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (April 29, 2010), 304 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

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The blurb:
Danny Dragonbreath knew girls were trouble. But the new foreign exchange student, Suki the Salamander, is beyond trouble. Not only has she reduced his best friend, Wendell, to a blithering, lovesick tadpole, but she’s apparently the object of an elaborate ninja frog kidnapping plot. Danny is never one to pass up an adventure (especially one involving ninja frogs), and so he and Wendell and Suki set out on a dangerous quest through the mythical Japanese bamboo forests to find out what these fearsome frogs want. Danny may not be able to breathe fire like a normal dragon, but he and Wendell have watched lots of kung fu movies and can totally take on a bunch of ninja frogs. Or, um, so he hopes . . .

Using her trademark hybrid style of comic-book panels and text, Ursula Vernon has packed this second book in the hilarious Dragonbreath series with lots of kung fu, a little bit of loooove, and plenty of everyday school drama.

Review:

Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs is a funny, action-packed book for young readers. Three middle school friends find themselves roped into an unexpected undertaking in Ancient Japan with ninjas, dragons, unicorns, and other magical creatures. While our lead character, Dragonbreath, is a dragon, he is equally a bored middle schooler who dreams of ninjas, martial arts and battling danger.

Dragonbreath: Attack of the Ninja Frogs is a witty adventure book sure to appeal to young readers.

ISBN-10: 0803733658 - $12.99Publisher: Dial; Ill edition (February 4, 2010), 208 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.

About the Author, courtesy of Amazon:
Ursula Vernon is the author and illustrator of "Nurk," "Digger," "Dragonbreath" and a number of other projects. The daughter of an artist, she spent her youth attempting to rebel and become a scientist, but eventually succumbed to the siren song of paint (although not before getting a degree in anthropology, because life isn't complete without student loans, right?). Her work has been nominated for an Eisner award, "Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition" and a number of Webcomics Choice Awards.

Ursula grew up in Oregon and Arizona, went to college at Macalester College in Minnesota, and stayed there for ten years, until she finally learned to drive in deep snow and was obligated to leave the state.

Having moved across the country several times, she eventually settled in Pittsboro, North Carolina, where she works full-time as an artist, writer, and creator of oddities. She lives with her boyfriend, his beagle, a small collection of cats, and a large collection of Indonesian masks, all of which mostly contrive to keep her out of trouble. Thank you to Ursula Vernon and Penguin Group for this review opportunity!

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HOW I SAVE MONEY
By
Gregory K.

My parents always tell me “Saving money is the key!”
So I’ve figured out a lot of ways that saving works for me.

Today, in fact, I saved a dollar eight from being sad --
I used it for some candy, and I know that made it glad.

Last week, I saw some quarters in a fountain at the mall…
So I saved them all from drowning (then they bought a basketball).

My allowance funds get lonely, but I save them if I spend ‘em,
And I get them into registers where lots of bills befriend ‘em.

And just the other day I bought … well… I don’t know what you call it,
But I saved two twenty dollar bills from rotting in dad’s wallet.

I know a lot of other tricks, but I don’t want to bore you…
Instead just send me all your cash. I’ll gladly save it for you!


Happy final Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month. Go check out the collected links nicely gathered up over on A Wrung Sponge.

(I'm posting an original poem-a-day through April in celebration of National Poetry Month. Links to this and other poems here on GottaBook (and there are lots of others, because poetry is NOT just for April) are collected over on the right of the blog under the headline "The Poems".)

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