Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Signing off for Honeymoon

Hey there blog readers-

So the BIG day is upon us! Gina and I will be married this Saturday afternoon! This makes for a pretty hectic week, so I thought I would post one last entry before we left for our honeymoon. Here are some things to look out for while I am gone:

Cookie is a great magazine (with an incredible name). Pick up their Oct/Nov issue and turn to page 144. What's there? A KILLER review on Punk Farm on Tour! It was rated as a "Surefire Hit" and they display a big ol' sprawling spread from PFoT!


Look for my interview on the Bright Horizons' Virtual Book Fair podcast.


Stay tuned for my interview with Mark Lynch's Inquiry on WICN.

Click over to the Just One More Book podcast to hear a SCANDOLOUS interview.
They sure dug up some dirt on me....

Look for a feature over at Curled Up With a Good Kids Book.


Look for Punk Farm to be busy while I'm gone.
It's the Punk Farm on Tour Blog Tour!
They will be hitting up the 7-Imp Blog and Fuse#8 to start and will
go on to many other great blogs during October.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:
PICK UP A COPY OF
PUNK FARM on TOUR
ON
OCTOBER 9th!!!!



Over and out!
-JJK

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Book Buds

To see what the Book Buds Kidlit Reviews blog has to say about Punk Farm on Tour head on over to their favorable review!

Fortunately Goat stopped by to clear up some confusion before things got messy!
Thanks to my buds over at Book Buds for the kind words!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

PunkFarmSpace.com

Ladies & gentlemen...boys & girls...(insert trumpet sound here)

Punk Farm on Tour is out in 3 weeks and counting....

In support of that, Punk Farm just launched a new website called www.punkfarmspace.com

You can click from profile to profile of the Punk Farm fans and learn how characters got to the PF concert and what happened afterwards.

www.PunkFarmSpace.com


Check it out!
-JJK

Some highlights of PunkFarmSpace.com:
There are 41 “friend” profiles (including Punk Farm’s);
* Each profile picture is an original painting, not ones lifted from the book.
* Each character is somewhere in the book at a show.
* If the character had his/her photo taken at the show, that is the profile image shown, a new painting made from the perspective of where the camera would be.

- Readers can download Punk Farm's new song - "The Wheels on the Van" for free.

- Readers can download coloring pages, IM icons, wallpapers and screen-savers.

- Readers can preview spreads of the book in the picture section of Punk Farm’s profile.

7 Impossible Blog


The good people over at the 7 Impossible blog have given me an embarrassment of riches in their kind words for Punk Farm on Tour. And they also made the big PunkFarmSpace announcement yesterday! It was an exclusive! Check it out here!

I have to agree with Fuse # 8's assessment...Eisha and Jules do not sleep....

AAARRRRrrrgghhhh!!!!


Happy talk like a pirate day!


Monday, September 17, 2007

Mama Speaks / FREE book


The terrificly rockin' mamas over at the Mama Speaks blog just gave a shout-out to Punk Farm. AND - they're running a contest. A contest that ends tonight at midnight! To see their review of Punk Farm and for information on how you can win a FREE copy of My Buddy, Slug, head on over to their blog - www.mamaspeaks.com. While you're there, check out their archives, which is chuck-full of cool stuff for cool kids.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Reading Tub

Check out The Reading Tub, it's a great website that is chuck-full of children's book reviews written by adults who have test run them with kids. They were nice enough to talk about Punk Farm here.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Annie Was Warned in Family Fun



If you see Family Fun's October issue on newsstands, thumb through to see their nice shout-out to Annie Was Warned and other great Halloween titles. Thank you, Family Fun!!!


getting the perfect author photo

Punk Farm on Tour is in stores 4 weeks from today! I'll finally be able to talk about the production of the book here on the ol' blog. And since I still don't want to spill too many beans, I'd like to talk about the author photo. With Punk Farm, I asked my buddy John McNeil to take the picture (my friends like having their names in the back of the books) and we spent a few hours in a petting zoo with some very uncooperative sheep and goats. But in the end, we got this really funny picture of me trying to look tough, holding a guitar with some farm animals. Perfect - it's Punk Farm!

So now - Punk Farm on Tour - I'm thinking BIGGER! So I start to ask around..."Does anyone have any cows I could use?" Sure enough, my sister Maura works for a farm stand and our father knows the owner. So they both check in and sure enough, they say, "Yeah, we have cows you can use!" Awesome! So now it's my friend Milmoe's turn to get his name in the back of the book. (You may know him as "the boyfriend" from Page by Page.) For whatever reason, Milmoe has decided to grow a full-out mustache. No offense to those out there who are mustached, but there's something odd about a mustache on a 25 year old guy. He is also wearing these ridiculous jeans that have a big rip on the back, upper leg. Milmoe has no shame. I should also mention that Milmoe took it upon himself to bring a fake sword and other odd props in case they were needed.

We turn up to the farm, Milmoe with his sword and mustache, me with my brother's guitar...and we knock on the door. No one answers, but from what I understand, they were told we'd be by...to take pictures with their cows. We're looking around and can't figure out how to get to where the cows were. That's when an old farmer approaches us.

"Can I help you boys?" he asks. (I remember this as him having a shot gun, even though that wasn't the case.)
"Uh...hi! Yeah, we're uhm....here to take pictures with your cows...."
Blank stare.
"My father said he had called..."
More blank staring...
"You see...I write children's books...and I have this book with farm animals who play music..."
"Oh, I see. Maybe yer father talked to my son. That's OK then. 'Cuz I was looking out the window and I said to myself, 'There are two guys walkin' around the back yard, one has a sword, one's carryin' a fiddle...something just ain't right about this...' But it's OK, go around that fence down there and walk down the path, you'll find some cows. Just don't approach them too quickly, they're shy."

Phew! Milmoe and I make our way down this path. And then a pasture - full of cows. The promise land!

Something we learned that day - cows are not cooperative. Another thing, no matter how hard I try to look tough, it just comes across as Zoolanderish. Here's how the rest of the day went...

First the cows were weirded out by us and wouldn't go anywhere near us. They hadn't accepted us yet as one of their own. We would need to be all Gorillas-in-the-midst...

When we did get close enough to one of them...

They would bolt! Cows can run fast!


I got a little carried away...

This guy scared the crap out of me. I had a tree picked out that I would run to and climb up if he decided to come charging...


For whatever reason, I always feel that jumping will make a cool picture...

Cows began to trust us...and then...


We got the perfect photo... here it is the Punk Farm on Tour author photo.


Big thanks to Mr. Christopher Milmoe for his photography skills and a great morning acclimating to cow culture.

And a HUGE thanks to Carter and Stevens Farm for letting us use their cows!

Friday, September 07, 2007

spotty posting

Hey gang- Sorry I've been MIA lately. The wedding is FAST approaching (3 weeks from tomorrow!) and life is just getting hectic. I've been busy these days working on my next literary offering and preparing for the release of Punk Farm on Tour, which will be out SOON (1 month and 2 days!) I stopped by my pal Mark Lynch's radio show Inquiry a few days ago (look for that interview in the near future) and recorded a podcast with the good people over at Bright Horizons for their ultra-cool Virtual BookFair that is coming up.

Expect info soon on a full out Punk Farm on Tour Tour. For now, save these dates-

****please note revised dates***
Tuesday Oct. 23 6 PM Worcester, MA - B&N Lincoln Sq
Thursday Oct. 25 Natick, MA - Natick Organic Community Farm via Wellesley BookSmith
Saturday Nov. 3. Delaware Book Festival


And while the wedding is on my mind, I leave you with this...
...let's hope this doesn't happen to us!