Author, school visitor, book lover, & librarian!

My friend Kay, who is a blogger for ADDitude magazine and also a frequent contributor to Adoptive Families, wrote a wonderful review of my small press’s most recent title, The Forever Friends Club, for Adoptive Families magazine. It’s out this month! Woo hoo!

Only problem is, they chopped it into teeny tiny pieces. This month’s book review section is about 1/4 what it usually is.

Bummer!

But here’s the FULL REVIEW, for your reading pleasure:

Every once in awhile, when I take my daughter Natalie to the park, I experience a secret delight.  As I take an accounting of the kids who are there, I realize–there are more kids who are adopted than otherwise!  How cool!  Natalie (Russia) and her best friend Harry (US Foster/Adopt) are there with me.   Kim (Korea) is shooting hoops with a group of boys.  And then, Hannah and Sergei (both Russia), appear out of the trees.  Let’s see, that’s one, two, three… out of….one, two…yes!  I love it!

A similar scenario is at the heart of a new very early chapter book, The Forever Friends Club, which features themes of friendship, problem solving, diversity, and adoption. In this story, Sam has no one to play with–until three families with kids move into his neighborhood.  Madison, the creative one, is adopted from Wisconsin. Nick, who never stops moving, is from Russia. (Natalie, excitedly: “He’s from Russia, like me?  And he rocks, like me?”) And Isabel, who remembers being adopted at age four from Guatemala, is the take charge type. That leaves Sam–he’s the only one who isn’t adopted, and he feels left out.  Find out how, in a clever twist of the “forever families” concept, the kids solve their problem and form “The Forever Friends Club”.

The book is graced with the lyrical writing style that is the hallmark of the best books at this reading level; the bridge between beginning readers and chapter books. Co-author Sue Gainor is the national chairperson of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA).

Wonderful, expertly developed free extras—guidelines for forming a Forever Friends Club, puzzles, stickers and more fun stuff for kids; information and learning tools for parents, teachers, and librarians—is provided on the publisher’s website, drtpress.com.

Read The Forever Friends Club with your child, adopted or otherwise.  Share in the delight!

Kay Marner, freelance writer/frequent contributor to Adoptive Families magazine/ founding member Iowa Chapter, Gift of Adoption Fund

I just re-found an interview that The Kool-Aid Mom did with me a couple of years ago over at her blog, In the Shadow of Mt. TBR.

I had completely forgotten it existed!

It’s so funny to re-read it, because the more things change…the more things stay the same. I still have no balance in my life!

If you are an author I want to be sure you know about the usefulness of Google Alerts for tracking reviews, mentions of you, results of PR activities, or whatever it is you’re interested in following on the web. I won’t get into the hows of creating a Google Alert for oneself- Google it! – but suffice it to say it is very useful, particularly when trying to keep track of ones promotional efforts.

I have Google Alerts set up for me, the titles of my books, the titles of books my publishing company has published, and the authors who have published with my company. Come to think of it, it would behoove me to set up a Google Alert for my company, too. That’s only logical.

It’s because I have a Google Alert set up for my books that I recently came across a brand-new book review for Mishka: An Adoption Tale. Mishka came out in 2007 – not that long ago in people years, but ages ago in book years. Most of the reviews for that book came out in late 2007, early 2008. A couple of bloggers reviewed it last year, but that was it the result of a little blog-tour experiment by yours-truly. But this review, sitting smack-dab in the middle of a website devoted to International Adoption, was completely unsolicited and unexpected. The very best kind of review a book could get!

I’ve been talking to someone who wants me to come visit the South Carolina Lowcountry area ( Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties), probably in the fall. One cool thing about that section of SC is that I have relatives who live on Daufuskie, so as long as the school’s schedule jives with their schedule (they’re busy, traveling, retired grandparent types) I wouldn’t have to charge for a hotel stay.

The person who wants me to visit is not a school system employee, simply a friend of a friend, but she’s mentioned that she doesn’t think the school she’s connected to has any discretionary funds for an author visit.

This is what I’ve told her: in 15 years of working in schools, and many, many visits by authors and storytellers, I never used any school funds for an author visit! I always wrote grants to pay for visitors at my school. 

To help her out, I did a quick search for grant possibilities to fund author visits in Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties, SC. I found many possibilities:

Just read a couple of articles that I found very interesting.

1. Presto Book O – Why I went ahead and self-published.

2. Room for Debate: Do School Libraries Still Need Books?

#1 showcases a guy with a good attitude and a good plan. Self-publishing the way it should be done. And a business model and marketing plan that makes sense for him.

#2 bums me out. Even though most of the experts they queried said yes, books are still needed, I think it’s worth noting that with the exception of one school librarian and the headmaster of that private school that threw out its entire library collection, all the rest are experts on new technology. So I guess that makes it all that more meaningful that they think books are still needed. I did find it very odd that the people in the debate were the aforementioned technology experts and 2 people who work for private high schools. Why didn’t they talk to to the people who work with the rest of the world - i.e. the majority? Why only exclusive private schools where you can assume the kids all have access to technology 24-7? The rest of the world isn’t like that. The digital divide actually exists, folks. But maybe not to the readers of the NYTimes…

I’m a little bit embarrassed about what happened yesterday, mostly because it could have been avoided by simply THINKING about the ramifications of accepting a shipment of books at a storage facility with no loading dock or overhang whilst it was pouring rain (and paying a small fee for the shipping co. to keep the boxes over the weekend)…but these are the results:

The cardboard boxes got wet. Very wet. To prevent the water wicking into the books (which, for the first time in my little adventures as a publisher I didn’t have shrinkwrapped in plastic) we brought all the books home and unpacked them from the boxes.

Books are fine.

Boxes are trashed.

Husband still annoyed.

Next on the agenda: repacking the whole mess when the new boxes I ordered arrive.

Does Random House have problems like this?

If you have read any of the “Me, Myself, and I” portions this blog, or any of my previous blog, idea-girl, you’ll  that I have been struggling with work-life balance for the past several years – essentially, since winter of 2006, when I took a full-time school librarian job after 7 1/2 years working part time, raising my children, and starting my little publishing company, not to mention writing and helping my husband with his business (most intensely in the past year).

And even though I did a job-share this year and so cut my hours in half, I’ve had a lot on my plate. As those hours dropped, my work for our family’s business increased. We’ve also been struggling with my younger son’s medical-behavioral issues, which takes up a tremendous amount of energy, time, and patience.

Because of all of this – combined with the growth of my husband’s Home Performance business – we’ve had to make some hard decisions around here. We decided that I would quit my job.

Yesterday I gave notice – 5 months in advance, as I’m planning on finishing out the school year – but notice all the same.

I feel relieved. I feel guilty (if you’ve ever worked as a teacher I think you’ll know why). I will miss the kids and the people I work with and the books.

I also feel like I want it to be over with now, but I’m scared of relying only on a start-up business for our income. And despite the fact that my husband is 100% supportive and probably more on board with the whole idea than I am…I also worry about the stresses ahead.

I am trying to get to the part where I feel free. Where I finally have time to work in a little exercise and regular house-cleaning and WRITING into my day…as well as to be available to take my kids to whatever activities they want.

It’ll happen. Right?

We’ve had two days off of school this week, thanks to 5 inches of snow here in central North Carolina. The snow was exciting at first – and fun – but then it promptly froze, was rained on, then refroze again. I’m not sure we’ll have school tomorrow; I haven’t left the house in four days! People who’ve been out and about report mixed conditions on the roads and it seems as if it’d be foolish to risk peoples’ lives by holding school in the next 24 hours.
I have been using my unanticipated days off three ways: 1, listening to my children whine about how bored and unhappy they are; 2, listening to my children fight; and 3, working on this website. It took almost the four full days of tolerating the first two things, but I’m proud to say that the last thing is done.
Oh – and I also took a nice walk in the snowy woods before it started to rain, and made a lovely snow lady.
But back to this website…I had a couple of blogs before, and I needed a place to consolidate them as well as a place to tout myself as an author – specifically, an author who is interested in visiting schools.
So here it is. What do you think?

Hello there!

Welcome to my website. I’m an author, a publisher, a mom, a business owner, a book reviewer, and a school librarian. This site is a place to bring it all together.

If you are interested in inviting me visit your school please see my page on School Visits.

If you are interested in my small publishing company, please click here: DRT Press.

If you want to send me a book to review, please go to my Book Review Guidelines page.

If you want to contact me directly, email me at adrienne(at)drtpress.com.

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About the blog: all of the posts on this site written before Dec, 2009  were migrated here from two other blogs of mine: readabookaday.net, which was about the joy of reading and using children’s books in the classroom and library, and idea-girl.net: a blog about owning a small press, being a working mom (who mostly works when the kids are around), home-life balance,  writing, and book marketing.

Is that you are Zeus for Halloween.

This was an amazingly easy costume to make, which from my perspective (the mother and chief seamstress) was key.

Outfit includes 1 toga (instructions and helpful video for tying a toga found on youtube) made from a white sheet putchased at the thriftshop for $2; a wire crown gussied up with some gold leaves purchased at a crafts store; and a gold belt made from a scrap of gold fabric I had lying around. Shoes were this summer’s sporty sandals – they still fit him or else I’d have spray-painted them gold.

We also made a lightning bolt out of cardboard and tin foil. This was shoved into the plastic pumpkin after a minute of use. Good thing it was bendable!

His other idea was to be Poseidon as depicted in the Percy Jackson books, which would’ve involved bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. Maybe a shell necklace or something. But he worried that no one would get it.

No one really got the Zeus outfit, actually. Every other kid we went trick-or-treating with was dressed as a vampire.