OMG!!! It’s 66 days until the book launch of TOUCHING THE SURFACE and I feel like I have a fluttering flock of origami cranes in my belly. I can barely contain myself. I doubt anything is going to stop the feeling of sweet anticipation–not that I really want too–but I thought I could at least try to share a little bit of my excitement with you by giving away swag packets to almost anyone who wants them. I say “almost” because I’ll absolutely try to accommodate everyone who is interested, but if I start to get too many requests (a fabulous problem, no?) I’ll have to cap it off to make it manageable. *fingers crossed*
Unfortunately, this event is only going to be open to mailing addresses in the US. Additionally, if you’re a teacher or a librarian and you’d like a class set/book club set of swag, please include how many people you will be sharing with. Here’s how it’s going to work…
I would really like to get the word out about TOUCHING THE SURFACE, so in the comments, please tell me where you reposted or shared the link to this blog. You don’t have to attach your link or anything–I’ll believe you. Besides, if you’re willing to lie to get my swag–that also makes me feel kind of good. But I do encourage you to be a moral and upstanding human being. *grin* And just so you know, your dedication to spreading the word doesn’t even have to be on line, you can also let me know that you’ve shared it with your teenage niece on your Uncle Ted’s side of the family–you know the one with the extra toe. *grin* I’m just appreciative of you giving me a shout-out.
MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION IN YOUR COMMENT!!!! I’LL THEN EMAIL YOU TO GET YOUR MAILING INFORMATION.
Oh, and I have a magic number in mind–I can do that–I write fiction. If that magic number gets hit, one participant will earn a very cool bonus prize!!!! It will be a good one–I promise. *squee*
Thanks so much for participating. Now it’s time for me to shut up so you can start. On your mark, get set…GO!
I’m road tripping with my mom and the boys today. Wish I could take you all with me…but wait…if you watch this…it will almost feel like you got to come. Minus all the complaining in the car. Not a bad deal LOL!
And now I need to know you’re favorite rock, stone or mineral. I’m a Pisces and my birthstone is the aquamarine, so that’s always been a favorite of mine. But there are so many gorgeous ones.
Hey everyone, I have my friend Kai Strand writing a guest post today. I expect you guys to be on your best behavior while I’m off doing really fun stuff like cleaning and laundry. If I catch you acting up I’ll make you help just like I do with my kids LOL!
Kai is going to tell us a little bit about writing middle grade. Now I know that my blog mainly focuses on YA Lit, BUT I am a firm believer in the cross pollination of ideas and experiences. So, sit back and enjoy. Take it away, Kai…
The main character of my newly released book, SAVE THE LEMMINGS, is much like my host, Kimberly Sabatini. Happy, positive, uplifting and inspiring.
*Wait…I haven’t started cleaning yet. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t really going to clean. Maybe I was actually going to fart around on the internet. Sue me. If I’d been being domestic I would have missed this lovely compliment. Okay…I’m going…sorry Kai.*
8th grade inventor, Natalie Isabelle Cailean Edwards is the N.I.C.E. girl who finishes last with the kids in school. Sappy inspirational phrases and monochromatic outfits have all but her best friends wrinkling their nose at her. When Natalie’s invention, the Texty-Talky, goes nationwide, she becomes an overnight sensation. Suddenly her days consist of photo shoots and interviews with little time left for her friends. A local reporter shatters her good-girl image by reporting a graffiti incident and the media launches into a smear campaign. It is so bad, even her friends start to believe the stories. Will Natalie be able to overcome the lies being printed about her? Will she be able to SAVE THE LEMMINGS?
There are two rules in writing middle grade. 1.) Make sure the reader can relate. 2.) Exaggerate the heck out of everything. One common issue to a kid in middle school is feeling like they don’t fit in. Natalie Edwards is an incurable priss. She walks around spouting things like, “Be pleasant to your neighbor and they’ll water your garden when you’re out of town,” and “A task performed is most rewarding when it is in service to others.” Luckily for our main character, she doesn’t let the groans and eye rolls from her fellow 8th graders bother her. So even though Natalie should feel like an outcast, she has the security of her three close friends and the love of her parents to shelter her from the meanness of others.
However, when her Texty-Talky invention makes her an overnight sensation, nothing can protect her from the meanness of the headline hungry media. Being accused of things like stealing her invention from aliens and coming up with the invention in a drug induced stupor, Natalie finally knows what it feels like to be picked on – even though she has been her whole life.
How she overcomes the media bullying and takes control of her life again will inspire readers who might be struggling under similar circumstances. Though hopefully nothing involving aliens!
About the author: Kai Strand writes fiction for middle grade and young adult readers. Her debut novel, The Weaver, was a finalist in the 2012 EPIC eBook Awards. The Wishing Well: Another Weaver Tale is set in the same storytelling village as The Weaver. She is a (very lucky) wife and the mother of four amazing kids. The most common sound in her household is laughter. The second most common is, “Do your dishes!” She and her family hike, geocache, and canoe in beautiful Central Oregon, where they call home.
To find out more about Kai’s books, download companion documents, find links to her published short stories and discover all the places to find Kai both virtually and in person, visit her website: www.kaistrand.com. She loves to hear from readers, so feel free to send her an email or visit her facebook page, Kai Strand, Author.
Yes, I’m back? So now that you’ve had a mini lesson in MG I’m wondering what you think the biggest similarity between MG and YA is? What’s the difference? Are there any books out there that you think should be YA instead of MG or visa versa? What’s your favorite MG book? Does anyone write both? Any thing about MG that really makes you crazy? Come on…lets talk.
At BEA I was lucky enough to grab an ARC of WHAT’S LEFT OF ME by my fellow Apocalypsie, Kat Zhang. And now you’re lucky because I’m giving you a chance to win my ARC. Before I tell you how, let me give you a little preview of WHAT’S LEFT OF ME (#1 in The Hybrid Chronicles.)
Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t…
For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable–hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet…for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.
In order to win, you need to tell me what you think the biggest problem would be with have two distinct, but closely connected souls, in one body. I’m thinking it would be pretty traumatic if my other self had a different taste in books LOL! Leave your problem in the comments below with your contact information. You can’t win if I can’t contact you. This contest is open internationally and it will be running all weekend.
I met Ruta Sepetys at the 2012 SCBWI LA Conference and she moved me. She inspired me. She motivated me and I hadn’t even read her book yet. And then I did read it–cover to cover on the plane ride home from LA–and I realized that I kind of hate her, even though I love her, because she wrote one of THOSE books. A book that is a game changer. It’s what I want to write, perhaps not the content specifically, but I long to leave words behind that make the world a better place. She’s the kind of writer I want to be. When I talked to her and read her words, I saw her standing on the shoulders of the greats–like Harper Lee, Lois Lowry and Laurie Halse Anderson–that’s how good she is. And I wondered if there would still be room for me up there someday. But then I realized that I don’t have to be jealous–these women are not my competition–they are my heroes. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously–and at great risk–documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
I met Ruta Sepetys very recently at the SCBWI Annual LA Conference. I’m going to be honest, after hearing her speak, I moved BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY to the top of my to-read list and devoured it on the plane ride home from California.
Since I finished this book, I’ve recommended it to everyone. But as you might imagine, there are some funny conversations that come after I’ve passionately explained about this Lithuanian World War II story. For instance, I promised to bring the book over to my mother-in-law when I was done with this review. Yesterday I received a text message from her…
MIL: Kim, what was the name of that book you wanted me to read again? Some of the girls at work said it was Fifty Shades of Grey, which is kind of weird. Is that the same book?
Of course I set her straight LOL! But it got me hoping that more people will accidentally find Ruta’s book because of Fifty Shades. This would be a good thing because I’ve read them both and in my humble opinion, one of them WILL be read by enormous numbers of people and one of them SHOULD be read by enormous numbers of people.
BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY asks…”Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth?” I say we don’t wonder this enough. History is full of secrets, but I often question if this is by choice. Too often we fill ourselves up with books like Fifty Shades, so that we can claim that there is no room in our lives to uncover the real secrets–the ones that make us feel things and look at ourselves. What IS a human life worth?
Since we can not change history, I believe that history’s victims are owed a voice and a witness. Ruta Sepetys is the voice for those in Lithuania–the voice for human kindness. I am the witness. You are the witness. We can not change history, but by being cognizant, we do have the power to change the present. We must take the darkness out of secrets and bring the inhumanity out into the light–where we can keep our eyes on it. Where we can watch to make sure it never happens again. How can we prevent genocide, if we can’t even look at it. We get to choose what a human life is worth in the future. We have that power.
So, before you get your Christian Grey panties in a twist, I’m not saying you shouldn’t read Fifty Shades of Grey. I’m simply challenging you to read this book too. If you can be titillated by what goes on in that book, then you have the stomach to read about the real stuff. If you can stay up all night to read Fifty Shades from cover to cover, you can squeeze in a chapter a day of BETWEEN SHADE OF GRAY. I challenge you to step outside your comfort zone–fill yourself up with more than one kind of book. Be a witness. Help create a world where we never have to question what a human life is worth.
Read BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY.
Ruta Sepetys was born and raised in Michigan in a family of artists, readers, and music lovers. Her award-winning debut novel, “Between Shades of Gray” was inspired by her family’s history in Lithuania and is published in 40 countries. Her new novel, “Out of the Easy” is set in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1950. A historical tale of secrets and lies, “Out of the Easy” is a haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny. Ruta lives with her family in Tennessee.
You can find out more about Ruta Sepetys and BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY here…
