NEW IN 2013
Inspired by the true story of a racially divided Arizona football team who must find a way to win before their home becomes a ghost town.
Knopf Books for Young Readers October 8 2013.
6 games
3 unlikely friends & a town set to shutter
1 chance to win it all or be forgotten
MUCKERS … the story of an Arizona mining town and its team that defied the odds.
My first novel LITTLE JOE is a finalist for the South Carolina Children’s Book Award! Now out in paperback, Little Joe looks at the choices a young farm boy must make about treating animals and his relationship with the calf he raises for auction. Get the Teachers’ Guides.
- FINALIST South Carolina Children’s Book Award
- MASTER LIST Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award
- NAT’L PICK USDA’s Agriculture In The Classroom
- NAT’L PICK AMERICAN FARM BUREAU’S Feeding Minds & Cultivating Growth
JUST IN TIME FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
Babe Conquers The World
Rich and I are writing a sports biography on the greatest woman athlete, Babe Didrikson Zaharias. The book, our first nonfiction project, is aimed at middle graders and will be published by the Boyds Mills imprint, CALKINS CREEK PRESS.
Here we are with Calkins Creek editor Carolyn Yoder, announcing the release date of BABE CONQUERS THE WORLD, out in MARCH 2014!
IT’S MAPLE SYRUP TIME
Right In My Backyard …
Following the sweet, steamy scent of SUGAR HOUSES making maple syrup.
Still warm maple syrup!
Waiting in line for blueberry pancakes is worth it at Stuart and John’s Sugar House in Westmoreland, NH. Each table gets a vat of maple syrup—still warm and made half an hour earlier!
It’s a form of local agriculture I look forward to supporting every year at this time. Sugaring is labor-intensive. It takes plenty of muscle-power to collect buckets laden with sap and to chop wood that will heat the machines that turn the sap into liquid gold. A family-run operation like most sugar houses in New Hampshire, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. Stuart and John tap 12 thousand trees, “here, there and everywhere,” says John. It was fun to wait in the SUGAR ROOM out back before breakfast, where an evaporator turns the sap into syrup, with John pouring us all samples. YUM!
FLORIDA TEACHERS GIVE LITTLE JOE THUMBS UP
Dade County Teaching LITTLE JOE
LITTLE JOE Illustration by Mark Elliott
Dade County Educators have selected Little Joe as an accurate image of agriculture.
Calling the book a great way to “jump into the life of a young rancher by reading a short novel,” the Florida educators are taking Little Joe into the classroom.
I can’t wait to read the LITTLE JOE TEACHING GUIDE that’s been specially written for the new COMMON CORE Standards. http://www.dade-agriculture.org/p/education.html
AMERICAN FARM BUREAU CHOOSES LITTLE JOE
LITTLE JOE a Second National Pick
Already a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Ag in the Classroom staple, now the American Farm Bureau’s FEEDING MINDS & CULTIVATING GROWTH has chosen LITTLE JOE to be part of its nationwide curriculum for middle school readers. Aimed at promoting kindness and learning through stories about animals and farm life, the program includes tool kits for teachers as well as Study Guides.
Check out the program and it’s other two book picks. (Can’t wait to read Heart of a Shepherd, and The Beef Princess of Practical County is so much fun.) The American Farm Bureau is offering great incentives for teachers to share Ag-themed books in their classroom, so pass along the news to any educators you may know.
A BLUE RIBBON DAY
Another Award List for LITTLE JOE
The 4th graders at NEEDVILLE TEXAS ELEMENTARY have voted Little Joe to their list of 2013 BLUE JAY AWARD nominees.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a blue ribbon moment to be nominated to the list! Thanks to librarian Cindy Kendziora for getting the fourth graders so enthused about reading.
Find out more about the nominees here: http://bit.ly/VULuUX
The reason I write is to connect with you. Like my work as a TV journalist and ESPN announcer, my writing is rooted in reality with a strong sense of time and place. I'm about the underdog and the choices they make in critical situations. My characters fight for what they believe in. Because no matter how hard, life's worth it. 
