Scholastic Book Fairs, Plus an American Girl Secret

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I've just come back from a fabulous weeklong American Girl 25th Anniversary Cruise to the Caribbean, and will be blogging that soon. (First I have to sort through my 345,892 photos.)



In the meantime, here's what happened the week-ish before I set sail. Oh! And at the end of this blog I will reveal an American Girl secret!!!

My love affair with Scholastic Book Fairs goes back a long way. It began with MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS . . .



I was driving through Texas, moving from Florida to California, when I got a phone call saying that Book Fairs wanted to feature the novel.



That was a shock to me because it was my the book and hadn't even been released yet. However, Book Fairs really believed in it and printed up 100,000 copies!!!

Now eight years and nine more published books later, Scholastic Book Fairs and I are still pals! Here are the kind of crazy smart of people who work there . . .



Recently, I visited a school that was getting ready for their Book Fair, and then the week after that I was at Pomelo Elementary in West Hill, CA
. . .



Hey look -- they were having a Scholastic Book Fair, too . . .



I got to speak to the students . . .



And then sign books . . .



What was Peepy doing during all that? Why, making history, of course . . .



Okay! Ready for the American Girl secret? Well, every year the Girl of the Year's name tightly guarded until the shortly after midnight of the new year. For example, for 2011 it's Kanani, and I wrote her stories. However, because of the 25th year birthday, the girls on the cruise got to find out early that Mary Casanova (who was on the cruise, along with me and author Valerie Tripp) -- plus, they learned that they will be receiving a book and doll.

Psst . . . I turned on my video camera when the announcement was made. You gotta see/hear the girls when they found out that the next GOTY is named . . .





Disclaimer: No proofreaders were harmed (or even used) in the creation of this blog.

CLICK HERE to find out about Lisa's newest book, WARP SPEED!!!

Interested in having Lisa speak at your school, library or conference? CLICK HERE for more information.

Lisa Yee

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Rad Dads and Me

I have a series about a fourth grade boy named Bobby Ellis-Chan. His father is an ex-NFL football player turned SAHD (stay at home dad).



So imagine my delight when I received a letter from Jason Sperber, a SAHD/blogger who ldentified with the dad in the books!



We've become friends and not long ago I was invited to be a special guest at Skylight books in Los Angeles for an awesome event celebrating the release of RAD DAD: DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONTIERS OF FATHERHOOD . . .


(That's Jason with anthology author/editor Tomas Moniz and Mista Cookie Jar.)

Tomas was up first and told us about the anthology, then read. As you can see, there was a totally kid-friendly vibe in bookstore . . .



Next was Jason and he read a very heartfelt essay . . .


(Here's Jason's blog about the event.)

When it was my turn, I read from BOBBY THE BRAVE (SOMETIMES) . . .


The icing on the cake as when Mista Cookie Jar sang and the kids began to dance with Peepy



Peepy was thrilled when she serenaded . . .



What a blast!



I was honored to be a Rad Dad for the night!!!




Disclaimer: No proofreaders were harmed (or even used) in the creation of this blog.

CLICK HERE to find out about Lisa's newest book, WARP SPEED!!!

Interested in having Lisa speak at your school, library or conference? CLICK HERE for more information.

Lisa Yee

Subscribe to Lisa Yee's Blog and get her fresh baked blogs e-mailed to you!

Email:

Or you can click this for a RSS feed...