Tuesday

Hmmm
It seems to be Tuesday.
It seems to be the last day of August.
It seems to be the last day my husband will go to work,
because
Tomorrow, September 1st, he is Retired!
-wendieO

Nonfiction Monday -- How to clean a Hippopotamus

How to Clean a Hippopotamus -- a look at unusual animal partnerships by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. NY: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. Available now.

How DOES a turtle keep a hippopotamus clean?
or for that matter -- what are those birds doing with those animals?
Oxpecker and Giraffe?
Plover and Crocodile?
Cattle egret and waterbuck?
Coyote and badger?
All of them are either cleaning one another, or are hunting together. Most every partnership has been formed to help each other get food or for protection.

The Honeyguide can't get into the bee's nest, so it finds a honey badger, leads it to the nest and waits until the badger has torn it apart. Neither could get the delicious honey without the other.

This great book about Symbiosis for first or second graders is illustrated by Steve Jenkins's collage. But this time, instead of stark cut-paper, the cut-paper serves to give the animal a three dimensional look while shading and stippling on the animal gives them texture.

Ah, the HM website has this neat tidbit about the co-authors:
"Robin Page lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, and their three children. Along with writing and illustrating children's books, Steve and Robin run a graphic design studio." Check it out. They're much younger than I had imagined, considering the number of books they've produced over the years.

More Nonfiction Monday reviews can be found at The Booknosher's blog.
-wendieO

Celebration of Children's Literature

The blog page with all the links to the Celebration of Children's Literature is up.
Go to Australia by clicking on this to the Stories Are Light blog.

-wendieO

Today's Writing Report

My friend (Internet friend-- we've only met in person once), Patricia Wrede, says:
"Editors don't make house calls. You gotta send it out."

In honor of her words, today was spent researching possible editors/ publishers to send manuscripts to.
(not so easy these days with so many publishers closed to non-agented writers -- no matter how many awards you've won.)

I now have one longer manuscript in the mail, plus 5 picture books ready for envelopes. With any luck I'll get them stuffed in their envelopes and to the Post Office on Monday. Where they will join the huge pile of manuscripts wending their way to publishers, sent by teachers who spent their summer writing and now have to go back to school. (Me -- I do all this writing stuff on my days off.)

Tomorrow is the very last day children can turn in their Summer Reading lists at the library and claim their prizes. Yes, I work on Saturday this week. On Monday they go back to school, and I get out the ladder and tear down all the Summer Reading decorations.
Off with the ocean and beach scenes!
Up with Fall colors and displays!
wendieO

MAC into mailbox

I just got a new computer.
Faster!
More memory!
Another MAC, naturally.

Soooooooo --
What should I do with the old one?
How about this?

A Mailbox?

Nonfiction Monday -- Not

Busy today.
(and no new books have arrived at the library this week that fit my review Criteria.)

The library has the staff working online with something called "SkillSoft" which offers a variety of training at your work desk.
I began it last week, but....
After doing the first section and getting 81% on the test, I discovered that my online progress report was empty when I came back to it.
ACK!
Gone!

So, today I spent several hours redoing the first part plus completing the second part.
This time there's a record of my test scores. (whew!)
AND -- when I re-did the first part -- I got 100%.
Hey, I'll take that score, thank you.
More testing tomorrow and I'll be done.

Meanwhile, to satisfy your Nonfiction Monday needs, you have a choice of clicking over to I.N.K (the Interesting Nonfiction for Kids blog), or take this link to this Monday's Nonfiction Monday site, at Playing by the Book.
-wendie old

What is a Hero?

Are there traditional heroes in children's books?

Or is the 'Hero's Journey' more of an adult novel sort of thing?

Betsy Bird and her husband discuss this with all sorts of comparisons and examples from Children's Literature.
Join the conversation over at A Fuse #8 Production.