Madisonia Blog

Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly has been nominated for the Virginia Readers’ Choice list for the 2009-2010 school year! That is so exciting for me. Now Velma has been honored in Maine, Maryland and California. My favorite part of this nomination is that Virginia and Velma start with the same letter. Maybe in the future I could write Velma Visits Virginia as one of her adVentures. V is for Victory. This is a great early holiday present for me. What do you think Velma should get for the holidays?

I had a great time reading Velma Gratch to grades 1-4 at Brearly School on the upper Eastside of Manhattan. The girls had great questions and several good ideas for the next Velma. One of the best things that they did as an activity was to create butterflies out of tissue paper and then tie them to their fingers with pipe cleaners. This was very creative! I hope to back there to read again.

Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly has been nominated for the 2008 -2009 Young Hoosier Book Award, Currently, close to 1,000 schools (and more than 72,000 kids) participate in this state award program of Indiana. Students across the state will read the nominated titles and select a winner for each category— Primary Grades/Picture Book, Intermediate Grades, and Middle Grades—in May 2009. SO IF YOU KNOW ANYONE IN INDIANA that can read! Pleas tell them to read my book and vote for it. Because I like to win.

What an exciting day. Wouldn’t t be way cool if one day I was nominated for the Hawaii Book Award!!

With my two nice nieces and one naughty nephew sleeping over we had a great time! This morning we made hats out of construction paper for my dog Lola. (see picture) Then I found out some really Good news! 100 Days and 99 nights received a 2008 National Parenting Publications Honor Award. The 2008 awards aren’t on the Nappa site yet, but for more information on the award, you can visit http://www.parenthood.com/nappa.php.

I got this email today! I love the doll and I think everyone should have one. I think it is brilliant. I can’t wait to see it with the butterfly on it. I think I am going to order one today.

The email follows:

I fell in love with Velma Gratch as soon as I picked up the book at the local library to read to one of my granddaughters.
I love to make dolls and found I just needed to make a doll of Velma. The attachment is the almost finished Velma and I am trying to get a butterfly just right to perch on her head.
Isnt she cute? The big problem is that now my two nieces want one and I was only going to make this one…after all Velma is a one of a kind kid isnt she?
I hope you like her as much as I do. Velma is one of my favorite dolls I have ever made so far.

Fri. Sept. 26th. I went to the Hendrick Hudson Library in Montrose to read some of my books. It was great fun. Elizabeth, the Librarian picked me up from the train and took me to the library. She was very nice and liked my books a lot. The library is beautiful. It looks almost new. And it feels airy and is full of light. I read Velma Gratch to a group of kids and they offered suggestions for other Velma Gratch books. I liked the suggestion for Velma and the Planets. One girl asked what the difference between moths and butterflies were and I had no idea! But we all thought it would make a great Velma book - Velma finds out the difference between Butterflies and moths. Then after I signed a bunch of books. The library had all my books which made me feel really great! They said that Velma and Pecorino was very popular.

Then I read two chapters of “100 days and 99 nights” to the older kids. One of the librarians, Anne, like the book so much she had read it twice! I thought was amazing and was really touching. She is one of my biggest fans. I am doing another reading at a library she works at in Irvington on Nov. 11th. I am really looking forward to that.