Thursday, July 28, 2011

@MrSchuReads and reads and reads and reads

School librarian Mr. Schu trekked out on his annual summer road trip and brought along a copy of Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians. He read it in all sorts of places, check it out:


Clearly a librarian in a league all his own!

You can follow his adventures on his travel blog.
If you were to follow only one kid lit Twitterer, make it @MrSchuReads.
And be sure to bookmark his great blog where he catalogs book trailers.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Finished inking LL7


This brings me to 679 total pages inked for the Lunch Lady series. Look for Lunch Lady and the Mutant Mathletes in March '12!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Planning my fall


Lots of great store and library visits are in the works.  Planning a radio takeover of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, and an Ollie dance party at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. An exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, also sending artwork down to Houston, TX to Imago Dei in conjunction with the class I'm teaching at Sam Houston State University. Not to mention a trip to DC for the National Book Festival and School Library Journal's Leadership Summit. And Henderson, NV is giving me the key to their city.

Who's ready to party?


Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Google +

You can circle me? One plus me? Whatever the verb is, I am on Google+. You can find me here.

A new social network -- color me exhausted. But worth the try. I've added a few unseen pieces of art from OLLIE on my profile there.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Sketchbook Saturday: notes from the summer studio

I was incredibly lucky as a kid to spend my summers at the beach. And now I feel even luckier to be raising my family on the New England seacoast in the summers. I travel a lot during the school year and the summer belongs fully to my family, so I've set up a summer studio at the old family beach house.

This is the view on my morning walks with Ralph. It's also where, as a child, I would search for crabs and starfish.





Friday, July 15, 2011

Shout-out to photographer Paul Specht

Photographer Paul Specht came by the studio last month to snap some updated author pics. I highly recommend him. Whether you need an author photo or a portrait of your child, visit him at www.paulspecht.com. He's great, easy to work with and he shoots with digital and film. (Some kind of fancy film that gives the cool color effects you see below.)

For high-resolution images of my author photos for your dart board, locker or publication, please visit: www.studiojjk.com/pressfiles.html.

 

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Look what came in the mail!

Advanced copies of LL6! Holding your finished, printed for the first time will never not be awesome! Lunch Lady and the Field Trip Fiasco will be on bookshelves two months from today!



Monday, July 11, 2011

3 months to Ollie

Marika from the Odyssey Bookshop wrote a very kind review of my next picture book. You can read it here.

I can't wait for the rest of you to read it, too!

Friday, July 08, 2011

My unknowing secret life

A mother brought her two kids to the library to see "the Lunch Lady guy" talk about his books. Turns out, he's her neighbor.

Yes, for the past few years the kids next door have been reading Lunch Lady and had no idea the guy who said hello to them every day wrote the books they were reading. Who knew! I guess now, we do.

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Comics get Librarian Love

I'm honored to have Lunch Lady highlighted in two major librarian periodicals. School Library Journal's July issue has "Comic Relief: Thirty-nine graphic novels that kids can't resist" and  the recent issue of ALA's Book Links has "Twenty Ridiculously Humorous, wickedly wild, visually arresting, acidly irreverent, and possibly appealing series for those young and old readers who enjoyed captain underpants books and want more". How's that for an article title?

Thank you librarians! You are in a league all your own!

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Why "Thank you Wisconsin!"?


Many have wondered over the years—why did I set Punk Farm in Wisconsin? At the time of the book's writing, I had never stepped foot in the state. But I had worked many years at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp with Wisconsin resident Fr. Domenic Roscioli. Fr. Dom, who volunteered and would thereby be constantly humbled by working under early twenty-somethings staff members like myself, was a staple at camp. A cancer survivor himself, he has accomplished many amazing things—including growing his philanthropic business, which was just featured in Milwaukee's Journal Sentinal.

The article is a great read. Check it out here.

Also, look for bags of Fr. Dom's Duck Doo Compost ("Food for the soil") hidden in Punk Farm's barn.

Friday, July 01, 2011

Lilly Library - July 5, 6PM


I'm helping kick-off my local library's summer reading program on Tuesday, July 5th at 6PM. So once you've put away all of the barbecue supplies and lawn games, come on by!

Lilly Library
19 Meadow Street
Florence, MA 01062