Happy Star Wars Day! Say “Star Wars” and most people will think about the amazing movies, but many novels have been written about all these creative characters and stories. In fact, there are around 380 books (not including all the comics)! George Lucas created this magical franchise with the first film back in 1977 and it operates now as a huge enterprise! Happy reading on Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!
As National Park Week wrapped up yesterday, I thought a lot about our national parks this past week. I thought about all the memories of our visits there. I also thought about the stories of connection, discovery, accomplishment, tradition, gratitude, ingenuity, inspiration, fun, and love! I smiled a lot during all these thoughts and memories. National parks bring us great joy in addition to many other benefits. National Park Week provided us with a daily reminder of all the goodness within this great and unique system. Thank you for coming along with me on this year’s National Park Week.
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The theme for today in this year’s national park week focuses on inspiration. The national park system definitely contains a lot of sources for inspiration from the people to the landscapes to the wildlife to the history and so on! The national parks can also inspire creativity. National parks have inspired artistic expression and creativity for many, many years. The national parks have definitely inspired me! Our national parks inspired me to write children’s book set in a national park. I created a magical national park, Erutuf National Park, as the setting for my children’s book series. The first book in the series is Turtle Tube: An Erutuf National Park Novel. It’s not a real national park, but an idealistic and magical one. How have the national parks inspired you? Happy National Park Week!
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As 2022 comes to a close, I am so very grateful for many things! I really appreciate your support for my writing and book and also really appreciate you following this blog. Thank you! Happy New Year! Cheers to finding your magic in 2023!
“Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. It brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular,” as stated on the American Library’s Association (ALA)’s website. Here is the list of the top 10 most challenged and banned books of 2021 and the reasons cited for censoring the books: To celebrate this week, add these books to reading your list! As the theme of this week says, “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”
Happy National Read a Book Day! Grab a book and enjoy a few moments of escape, magic, and adventure! Cheers to Read a Book Day! 📚
Happy 1 year to Turtle Tube: An Erutuf National Park Novel! 🎈🐢📚 It’s been a wonderful year from seeing the printed book in person for the first time to reading sweet reviews to meeting new fans to visiting my book in an actual bookstore and receiving an award! I’m really looking forward to year 2 and also book 2 coming out! For those of you on Instagram, I am hosting a giveaway to celebrate the one year of publication by giving away 6 signed copies of my book. Head over to my Instagram account to check it out and enter the giveaway which ends on 8/25. Good luck! 🍀 If you haven’t had a chance to review my book, please take a few minutes and just write a sentence or two online for it. Each review makes a huge difference in the algorithms online! Thank you all for your support!!! 🐢📚❤️
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I have some book news to share…. Turtle Tube: An Erutuf National Park Novel won three Honorable Mention Awards for the Middle Grade Fiction, New Author: Fiction, and Green Books/Environmental categories in the Story Monsters 2022 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards Contest! 🏅 Yay!! 🎉 So honored and grateful! ❤️ Click here for more information on my book.
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Cheers to another lap around the sun! As I enter a new decade in my life, I can’t help but reflect on the past ten years (and beyond). If you don’t know or really want to know which decade, ask my children or ask my older friends welcoming me to this club. I plan on answering that I’m 36 years old again. 😉 The previous decade flew by! People always warn you how fast the time with your children goes and these last 10 years really did go fast! Our children are both double digits now with one entering high school and the other only has one more year of elementary school left. I blinked and it flew by! I’m pretty proud of our two kiddos and the adults they’re becoming! When I think back over these last 10 years, I really think about a time of growth as a family and adventures together. I even wrote and published a children’s book! 😊 I feel very lucky! Over the last ten years, I made a number of new friendships; watch older friendships grow; reconnected with past ones; and said good bye to those whom we lost. In these last ten years, I have seen three very, very, very different men get elected and serve as Presidents. Kamala Harris became the first woman, first African American, and first Asian American to be Vice President. The United States legalized same-sex marriage across all 50 states. The #MeToo movement went viral. Fidget spinners were a craze. The Paris Agreement, an international treaty, was created to focus on climate change. We experienced a total eclipse. Space-X launched astronauts to the space station. The Black Lives Matter movement started. Astronomers were able to capture the first-ever image of a black hole. The U.S. established June 19th as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. COVID-19 spread around the world. And of course, the Chicago Cubs broke the curse and won the World Series in 2016! While I enter this next decade with some angst, I also welcome the next ten years of adventures and life. In fact, I feel very, very grateful! “This a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before.” Maya Angelou
To help keep your kids reading this summer, I created a fun summer reading challenge. One of the main characters in Turtle Tube: An Erutuf National Park Novel, Dean, loves to read. He needs help to read more books this summer! Click here for the challenge. Complete the list, e-mail me, and you will receive a fun sticker in the mail. Emma will be proud!
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