Newbery, Caldecott, NY Times #1, National Book Awardees Are All Here!!!

I'm back! In the last couple-ish of blogs, Peepy and I were in Scotland.



Here's an old shot of Peepy during an earlier visit to Scotland. She was in Braveheart with Mel Gibson. However, her beauty detracted from him, so all her scenes were cut. Too bad. It would have been a better movie with her in it.



This week was a big one in the KitLit Universe. Yes! ALA Awards were announced. The winner of the Newbery is Katherine Applegate for THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN!!! Seen here with the one and only Peepy . . .



And the Caldecott goes to Jon Klassen for THIS IS NOT MY HAT. Here is he with this is not his BatPeep . . .

On the subject of people who can really draw, we went to see our pal Kazu Kibuishi the creator of AMULET, at Vroman's in Pasadena where I've had a couple of book launch parties . . .



He talked and drew a landscape the same time . . .



Here's his illustration . . .



Just kidding!!! I did that. Can you tell? (I wasn't able to get a good photo of Kazu's drawing.) However, you can see and even own one of his (see below) HERE.



Then, we went to get our Book #5 in the series signed by Jason Caffoe, the colorist for the series, and Kazu . . .



See those two little notebooks with Peepy? One's mine and one's Kazu's. We both store our ideas in them. Plus, Kazu shared some of his sketches . . .



And before we go, we just had to share this with uber fabulous video of this National Book Award winner . . .



YES! It's my dear friend Jeanne Birdsall's brilliant TEDx Talk. Here she discusses writing, childhood, and 6th grade love. And to think Jeannie started writing because a boy she once knew said . . . well, watch the video and find out for yourself. If you can't see it below, or by CLICK HERE.



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Books make lovely gifts for you or someone you know, or someone you may know sometime. If you'd like an autographed book o' mine, order from Vroman's. Be sure to tell them that you'd like me to sign them, and include the name(s) of who the books should be made out to. Then Vroman's will mail it/them to you!"




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

Want to check out Lisa's NEW AND IMPROVED website? Simply CLICK HERE.

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

Lisa Yee

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Scottish Highlands Highlights, Hairy Coo, and Museum Quality Photos

Wait, wha . . . ? You're still in Scotland? (Meaning, me. I'm still in Scotland.) Well, yeah. Duh. Time Machine!



The Downtown Abbey gang was in Scotland for the holidays, and so were we . . .


(Peepy and Lord Grantham, aka Hugh Bonneville, met for the first time, here.)

So then, Scotland-wise, I was HERE, and I was THERE. Now, I'm here and there . . .



Let's start with here with some museum-quality photos. Yes, we visited the National Museum of Scotland . . .



Oops. There was an accident, but everyone was okay . . .



While we were at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery we saw this painting of Professor Peter Higgs as in HIGGS Boson . . .



It was so cool to see it because in my upcoming Young Adult Novel, SEVEN DAYS DOWN, the main character's name is Higgs Boson Bing! (The book is about the last seven days of high school for a Harvard bound senior . . . and what happens when it's discovered that he cheated on his application.)


(Above: Not to brag, but that's my illustration IN THE MUSEUM. Um, anyone who wanted to draw was allowed to.)

Here's more of the museum . . .



The Museum of Childhood was full of awesome rare toys!



And now, let's visit way over there. We took a day trip to the famed Scottish Highlands. Our guide, repeatedly, repeatedly, said that the movie BRAVEHEART was an affront to the Scottish people and everything in it, including Mel Gibson, was all wrong . . .


So, here's the real deal . . .



It was great fun running around Doune Castle, the site of the filming of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.



Our guide even lent us some coconuts so we could pretend to be horses. (If this makes no sense to you, see the movie.)



Later, we went to the ness (a.k.a. "lake") . . .



But the highlight of the highlands was meeting the Hairy Coo. Them's a sort of Scottish cow. Aren't they cute?



Cows are my friends. In fact, in another lifetime, I co-wrote this video for our Dairy Farmers . . .



When our guide asked for volunteers to feed the Hairy Coo, I jumped up and down and cried, "Pick me! Pick me!"



Ah, what a wonderful time we had in Scotland. We'll be back!



===========================

Books make lovely gifts for you or someone you know, or someone you may know sometime. If you'd like an autographed book o' mine, order from Vroman's. Be sure to tell them that you'd like me to sign them, and include the name(s) of who the books should be made out to. Then Vroman's will mail it/them to you!"




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

Want to check out Lisa's NEW AND IMPROVED website? Simply CLICK HERE.

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...