Blogiversary; Goodbye, Poetry Month; and Angry Birds Playground: Rain Forest Book Giveaway

Happy Spring!

Since I didn’t get to post about our 5 year blogiversary, I’ll jump in here to say a quick THANK YOU to friends who have been with the blog since the beginning or found us somewhere along the way. I love knowing that 5-book bundles are even now winging (wheeling?) their way to 5 of you who entered our contest. Woot!

Another of my National Geographic books was released a couple of weeks ago, so it’s time for a book giveaway. If you have any kiddos in your life who like the Angry Birds or might enjoy a lively book about the Amazon rain forest and its animals, please enter. I’d love to send you a copy of Angry Birds Playground:  Rain Forest.

This fourth book in the series (the third written by me) was my favorite to research. I quickly compiled a lonnng list of the amazing creatures that live in the Amazon. Narrowing it down was actually the toughest part of writing this book. Reading about some of them made my jaw drop.

-Like Hoatzin chicks. Those are born with temporary claws on the front edges of their wings. When a hawk or other predatory bird attacks a nest (which are built hanging over the water), the chicks can ploop to the water below, then swim underwater to the bank until the threat is over. Then they use those wee claws to climb back up the tree to their nest. (I couldn’t get photo permission in time for this post, but check out this quirky, chicken-sized bird!)

-Like the wide-mouthed Amazon Horned Frog. This bugger will attack and try to swallow anything that crosses its path – including human ankles. They're so aggressive that they're often found dead with some poor, too-big-to-swallow beastie halfway in.

                                                                                    Photo by George Grall

-Like the Golden Lion Tamarin, a photo of which you can see here. This fiery, red-orange (and endangered) species always looks so big in photos. Did you know they’re really only the size of a 5-year-old child’s foot?

Readers will learn about the four layers of the Amazon, the river itself, and the basin in general. Add cool lizards and turtles and insects and snakes, a few animals that consume their own … um, droppings, 5 primate species, and a frightening assortment of animals trying their darnedest to eat each other, and you’ve got one fascinating, four-layered place to discover.

Want to win a copy? Just enter via Rafflecopter below. I’ll send one winner their very own book. Contest runs through May 16th.

Jill Esbaum

Side note #1:  Farewell, Poetry Month. But if you're into rhyming picture books, I’m the guest blogger today over at Angie Karcher’s RhyPiBoMo.

Side note #2:  If you’re a picture book writer and are looking for a summer writing workshop, consider joining my author friend Linda Skeers and me at our Whispering Woods Picture Book Workshop. Follow link for more details.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wednesday Writing Workout

When my kids were young, they'd often find nests on the ground after violent spring storms. Sadly, doomed baby birds were sometimes lying in the grass nearby . . . vulnerable to hungry barn cats.

Once, we tried to save a little robin that was hopping around, only a week or so from being ready to fly. I put a ladder against the tree and climbed up, holding the little guy gingerly in one hand, and returned it to its (too low) nest. Trouble was, he jumped right out again. One of the kids ran inside for an Easter basket. We tossed in a few handfuls of grass, tied the handle to the branch near the nest, and, once again, I took the little bird up and placed him inside. Ploop! He was back on the ground before I was.

                                                                             Photo by Sande LaFaut (used with permission)

Four or five cats were closing in fast, and one snatched the little guy before we could retrieve him, then streaked away. Nature can be cruel, or at least it would seem so to us humans.

But it always bugged me that that little bird, so close to independence, met such a tragic end. Which is why I wrote Tom's Tweet, a story in which a curmudgeonly cat's impulsive good deed goes wildly haywire when he ends up having to babysit a demanding little nestling all day. This time, I made sure the story had a happy ending, the one I wished had happened in real life:  the two become friends.

So for today's writing workout:

Think back to a real-life situation, one in which you made the wrong decision or that you simply wish had ended differently, then create a story around the incident – not the way it really happened, but with a happier or more satisfying ending.

Meanwhile, remember to enter our contest to win a copy of Angry Birds Playground:  Dinosaurs. Contest ends June 18th.

Jill Esbaum

New Book Giveaway! What I Knew About Dinosaurs...

...would've fit on the head of a pin. Or maybe a thumbtack. One of my sons was dino-crazed, back in the day, and I stepped on my share of spiny plastic stegosaurs. But it's been awhile.

So when my National Geographic Kids editor asked me to author Angry Birds Playground:  Dinosaurs, I hesitated for a second before jumping in. But only a second.

(Re)learning all things dinosaur was a blast. New species are being discovered all the time, often by everyday folks. I had no idea how far we'd come in our dino knowledge. A tiny sampling:

-Scientists know what certain dinos ate because they sometimes find bones from smaller animals lying   in the stomach area of a dino skeleton.

-Slower-moving dinos often had deadly, whip-like tails to fight off predators.

-Dino bones have been discovered on every continent – including Antarctica.

-Scientists used to believe a Stegosaurus could flap the plates on its back to keep itself cool.

So where do the Angry Birds come in? Here's the copy from the back cover:

"It's an extraordinary day on Piggy Island because the Angry Birds haven't lost their eggs, they've FOUND something amazing:  a bone! Not a plain old bone – a HUGE and very old bone. What kind of giant creature could this bone have come from? That's a question for Mighty Eagle – the wisest bird they know. Join the Angry Birds on their imaginary trip through time to discover the most awesome animals ever to roam this planet:  the dinosaurs!"

As Mighty Eagle helps the Birds imagine prehistoric times, they all wear tiny animals skins and bones in their head feathers, ala Bamm-Bamm Rubble. Very cute.

The book also answers these questions . . . 

-What was Earth like in the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous time periods? 

-How are fossils created? 

-How do scientists determine a fossil's age? 

-How are dinosaurs related to modern birds?

-How are all those dino names pronounced?  

Throughout the book, Franco Tempesta's spectacular paintings give kids an idea of how dinosaurs might have looked (click on his name to see for yourself!). His colorful and realistic dinos (48 of them!) all but leap off the pages.

Back matter includes a world map showing where various dinosaur bones have been found, a fun-filled quiz, a glossary, and dino-related activities for kids.

If you know a dinosaur-loving kid, or one who is nuts about the Angry Birds, enter below to win a copy of Angry Birds Playground:  Dinosaurs (National Geographic). In your comment, please let us know who you'd be sharing the book with.

Entry deadline:  June 19th

Jill Esbaum

If you've never entered a Rafflecopter giveaway, you may want to first read their info on how to enter a Rafflecopter giveaway and/or the difference between signing in with Facebook vs. with an email address. Email subscribers: if you received this post via email, you can click on the Rafflecopter link at the end of this message to access the entry form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Two Weeks of Thanks-Giving!

Hello, readers! With Thanksgiving almost upon us, it's time to kick off our annual Two Weeks of Thanks-Giving celebration.

Please join us in penning a writing-related thank you. You may write your thank you in prose or a poetry form, but we especially hope you'll try a thanku – a thank you in haiku form. (See Esther's post last year explaining the Thanku form.) You might express your gratitude to a writing teacher who helped you along the way. You might thank a writer whose work you admire. Classroom teachers, Carmela issued you a special challenge to give your students the same assignment. Read about that in her original post.

We invite all our readers and fellow bloggers to share their thank yous with us. You can do so in one of three ways:
1) a comment to one of our posts,
2) an email to us at teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com, or
3) by writing a thank-you blog post of your own and then sharing the link with us via 1) or 2). Feel free to copy and paste the above image into your blog post. We'd love if you'd also link back to this post and invite others to participate. 

Please keep your creations to 25 words or less. You have until November 30. On that day we'll post a round-up of links to all the participating bloggers' posts.

Meanwhile, here's a little background on my thanku. When I was green as grass, two particular writing mentors provided steadfast friendship and cheerleading. Their encouragement made tolerable my many, many rejections. I'm sad to say that both of these nurturing souls have passed on, but, David R. Collins and Mel Boring, this one's for you:

                                                             Your steadfast support
                                                     sparked hope in this newbie heart
                                                               and made me believe.

For those of you who entered our book giveaway hoping to win an autographed copy of my new book, Angry Birds Playground:  Animals, my husband just chose a name out of a hat (okay, a measuring cup). And the winner is....
                                                                    Kristen Larson

Kristen, I'll be contacting you soon.  :)   THANK YOU to those who entered.

Jill Esbaum

Angry Birds, Part 2

Part of the back matter in Angry Birds Playground:  Animals was to be a double-page spread filled with activities meant to assist parents in helping their children take learning beyond the pages of the book. I'd need 20 or so activities. I tried to think of this task as little as possible while I wrote the rest of the book's text. Eventually, though, the writing of those pages could no longer be ignored. But, hey. There were dozens of animals in the book. Surely I could think of 20 activities that kinda-sorta had something to do with featured animals, or find some on the internet I could adapt to my purposes.

The first one I thought up was for kids to balance a ball atop their feet, similar to the way penguin parents keep an egg up off the ice. Was that even physically possible for little kids? It's been awhile (a long while) since my own kids were in the target age group (4-6 year olds). I needed help. I needed beta testers.

I immediately though of Jacob and Joshua, sons of my Iowa author friend, Becky (I'd be happy to send you details about Becky's fabulous books if you want to e-mail me privately, but I'm not including her last name here in order to protect the boys' privacy on the sometimes creepy internet).

The boys were up for it, so I flooded Becky's e-mail inbox with activities as I wrote them. Jacob and Joshua gamely tried SO many. The ball balancing didn't make the cut, but here they are (along with their sister, Anna), testing the milk carton boats they made....

For months, their mom kept a secret. A couple of weekends ago, I saw the family at a book festival and was finally able to hand Jacob and Joshua copies of "our book" and watch their reactions when they saw their names on the dedication page. Jacob turned to hide a smile. Joshua clasped the book to his chest and jumped in stompy circles.

Could anything be better than that? Well, maybe. Toss in a little serendipity....

The pandas on the cover are adorable. But since there were no pandas inside (long story), I was feeling a little "meh" about it. Until Becky saw the book and instantly went melty over the cover. See, her entire family traveled to China in 2010 to adopt Joshua. In her own words:  "Before we met Joshua, we were able to send him one package [orig e-mail included photos]. Do you see the stuffed panda? It was one of our first gifts to Joshua. He slept with it, and carried it all the way home to Iowa. His brother Jacob loved the panda so much, he picked one of his own to be his special souvenir. When our family first saw the two pandas on the cover of Angry Birds Playground, we all had the same thought. 'Look, it's Jacob and Joshua!' My mother even commented on the pandas when she first saw the book. Pandas remind us of Joshua's birth country, and both Jacob and Joshua love them."

Suddenly, two little pandas were exactly right.

Remember to enter our giveaway to win an autographed copy of Angry Birds Playground:  Animals. For contest details, see Monday's post. The deadline is 11pm (CST) tomorrow (Thursday), and the winner will be announced Friday.

Jill Esbaum

Close Encounters of the Angry Bird Kind

A few years ago, I fell into one of those "right time, right place" opportunities – a picture book manuscript my agent submitted to National Geographic Kids miraculously brought an offer to author a series of softcover nonfiction books for 4-6 year olds. I had great fun writing five Picture the Seasons books before the series was discontinued.

Luckily, my editor thought of me again this past April, asking if I'd be interested in a project that required a steep learning curve and called for somebody who a) was comfortable writing both fiction and nonfiction, b) could devote a month or two to this project (during which there'd likely be no time for a personal life), and c) could write quickly.

I replied, "Sure, I can do that!"

(Note:  "Sure, I can do that!" is my standard answer to most any editorial request. Whether or not I'm actually confident that I'm able to do what they're asking is irrelevant. A willing attitude and an internet connection make it possible to teach yourself just about anything, right?)

A week later I learned project details. The book would be a *takes a deep breath* 128-page hardcover fiction/nonfiction mashup featuring the Angry Birds on an around-the-world adventure, during which they'd meet and learn about dozens of real animals as they searched five distinct habitats for their eggs, which their pig enemies had stolen, with back matter the likes of which I'd never tackled before. I'd be choosing the habitat locations and about 40 animals, writing nonfiction info about each, funny dialogue for the Angry Birds - each with their own personalities, chapter intros, and the general storyline launching the birds on their adventure, recapping their trip at the end, then wrapping up their story.

I was in over my head, and I knew it. Sheesh, just reading the above paragraph again now makes my heart rate rise. This was a massive project, and I had no idea where on earth (literally) to begin.

But then I remembered the anecdote Anne Lamott tells of her childhood, the one in which her father gave writing advice to her brother, who was struggling to write a school report:  "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." Couldn't be much more appropriate in this case!

By one week into the six it took to research and write the book, I was having the time of my life. This book stretched me as a writer, taught me how much work (from so many people!) goes into a project like this, and pushed me into places I hadn't imagined I could go. And what writer wouldn't love knowing the project she's working on in May and June is scheduled for release six months later?! (I waited five years for my last picture book, Tom's Tweet. Totally worth it, but still.)

Which brings me to today. I'm happy to announce that my newest publication, Angry Birds Playground:  Animals (National Geographic) has hit bookstore shelves. I hope you'll take a look. It's targeted to kids 4-6 years old, but fun for older readers, too. The book follows the Angry Birds through the Amazon rainforest, the Mojave desert, across the Pacific Ocean, to the grasslands of Tasmania and Tanzania (thanks to a confused sea turtle, the Birds have to visit both), and both the Arctic and Antarctic (thanks to a confused Angry Bird, who is certain that penguins live in the Arctic). They meet caimans and sloths, lizards and bats, otters and whales, black swans and Tasmanian devils, lions and elephants, seals and penguins. Pandas? Um, no. I'll tell you about that Wednesday.

To win an autographed copy, all you have to do is enter our drawing.

Entry Rules

You may enter the contest one of two ways:  1) by posting a comment below OR 2) by sending an email to teachingauthors [at] gmail [dot] com with "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Whichever way you enter, you MUST give us your first and last name AND tell us how you follow us. If you enter via a comment, you MUST include a valid email address (formatted this way:  youremail [at] gmail [dot] com) in your comment.

Contest open only to residents of the United States. Incomplete entries will be discarded. Entry deadline is 11 pm (CST) Thursday, November 15, 2012 (yes, this is a short one!). Winners will be announced Friday, November 16, 2012. Good luck!

Jill Esbaum