Cybils are announced tomorrow on Valentine’s Day! I had the privilege of serving as one of the preliminary judges for Poetry and this year was chock-full of great poetry books. Seriously, there were awesome books that didn’t make our final five just because we were limited to five. Be sure to check out the winners in the morning!

–Kristy Dempsey (2010; all rights reserved)

For those of you who don’t know,   is having a month-long series of posts on her blog about Dreaming.

Dreaming big, dreaming small, dreaming yourself to where you want to be.

She’s had some pretty inspirational authors sharing their thoughts and today I have the privilege of being featured. You’ll read an excerpt from my forthcoming book with Floyd Cooper (out in 2012) and learn why I think Disney has it all wrong when it comes to wishing on a star. While you’re there, be sure to read the rest of the entries so far. You’ll be inspired to dream big!

Here’s the link to Lisa’s blog!

 Today ends the reign of this year’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Jon Scieszka. What a great advocate for reading and the honest enjoyment of story! I’m looking forward to the announcement of the next Ambassador. I wonder who it will be?

Also, I must thank Jon for attending my very first book signing for ME WITH YOU this past summer at the Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, IL. He was, of course, there to read his own work but he, along with authors Richard Peck, Jerry Pinkney, Ingrid Law and Gennifer Choldenko, drew a crowd, which allowed me to feel like my first book signing was a rip-roaring success. And they all put me at ease. Here’s a pic of me reading, just a short time before Jon Scieszka, National Ambassador, took the stage. 🙂

I’ve spent much time this fall reading luxuriating in the poetry books that were nominated for the Cybils Awards this year, and will soon have many reviews to share with you. But I’m also excited about all the books that were nominated in other categories and can’t wait to get started on some of those. 

Here’s a link so you can check each category out for yourselves: 

dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2010/01/2009-finalists-the-best-of-the-best.html

I am peeking in from a very busy schedule (Travel! School visits! Holidays!) to join the chorus of authors singing the praises of their agents.

In late 2005 I began to think that I might be ready for an agent. I live in Brasil and several of my submissions had gone missing, and several more rejection letters had gone missing in transit and it was becoming increasingly difficult to submit to US publishers from Brasil. I am primarily a picture book writer, though. I knew the odds. Agents make a seriously small pittance off of picture books, and the process takes so long to publish them, that the amount of work that an agent puts into agenting picture books is often not worth the return. I knew I’d have a difficult time finding an agent. But I thought I’d at least try.

And when Kendra Marcus at Bookstop Literary sent me an email saying she was interested, my heart stopped. I phoned her. We talked. We talked some more. She phoned me. We talked some more. I sent her more of my mss. We talked some more. We clicked. Kendra is forthright and honest, but also gentle and affirming. She is discreet, she is honest and she is successful. And then when MInju Chang joined forces with Kendra in 2006, I became the beneficiary of a duo with the business savvy, literary insight and requisite goofiness you want in a literary agency. My agents at Bookstop Literary Agency are by turns my sanity and my saints. They listen to me, they value my opinion and they care about me and the readers I’m writing for. And most importantly, they make me giggle. What more could I ask for?

There are books you love to read with your kids, and books you love to read for yourself, and books your kids love to read with you, and books they love to read for themselves. And then, every once in a great while, there is a book that so fluidly passes through each of these categories, in and out, out and in, that every single time you read it, alone or with a child, there is something new about it to love. ALL THE WORLD is one of those books. I have to admit up front that Liz Garton Scanlon is one of my online friends, and is very dear to people who are very dear to me, and Marla Frazee has been one of my not-so-secret illustrator crushes for quite a while now. So I completely own up to the fact that I was predisposed to like this book. In fact, I like it so much that my love for it overshadows and taints my children’s love for the book. I don’t think there is any way for them to love it quite as much as I do, so therefore I can’t really use my own children as good judges for how kid-friendly this book is.
The beautiful meaning of ALL THE WORLD might be just a little philosophically above my six-year old girl, though she did put a big huge smiley face on her reading log next to ALL THE WORLD’s entry. We have read it many times. She loves it, I love it. My nine-year old (boy) liked the rhythm, and the language and the small to largeness connection he felt to it. But he hasn’t asked to read it with me again. 😦 And my 11 year old? Well, she loves what I love, but she is beyond the picture book age. (Yes, boo-hoo. I am thrilled that I see her reaching for middle grade novels more and more. I am sad that I no longer see her pouring over the illustrations and words in a picture book we both love.)

So, since I can’t use my own children to gauge how truly kid friendly the book is, I’ll just have to keep reading it and reading it and reading it, for myself, and for others. I’ll sing the praises of this little gem of a book, a perfect marriage of poetry and picture, a book that hits a note that I wish we would all sing more, and one that I often feel from my home in South America. We are connected to one another in big and small ways, across culture, across race, across distance. We are connected to this hallowed ground upon which we tread. Perhaps if we lived in the knowledge of  that on a continual basis, there would be more "hope and peace and love and trust/ All the world is all of us." Thank you, Liz and Marla, for this beautiful book I will share with everyone I love. 

(Pair this one with THE APPLE PIE THAT PAPA BAKED by Lauren Thompson to extend the idea of community/connection and the Earth’s bounty.)

 Quick word to those paying attention: CYBILS nominations open tomorrow.

YES, tomorrow I said. Thursday, October 1st. And there is a snazzy new form to use to nominate your favorite titles in a variety of categories:

To find out exactly what the Cybils are and how to nominate your favorite books from this past year, the place to check for updated and expanded info is here at the Cybils blog. 
I’ll be serving as a first round judge on for the poetry category this year. I can’t wait!

I must be telling you soon about recent days, upcoming days, people and places and all manner of wonderfulness, but first I’ll shyly share this roundel. Tricia at the Miss Rumphius Effect blog posted a poetry stretch yesterday (in fact, she posts a poetry stretch *every* Monday; you should write yourself a note to check on Mondays for inspiration). This week she challenged us to write a roundel (not to be confused with a rondelle). I have not written a roundel before. (And perhaps you will say after reading this that STILL I have not written a roundel!)

The roundel, according to Paul Janeczko in A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms, is "a three-stanza poem of 11 lines. The stanzas have four, three, and four lines in them and a rhyme scheme of abab bab abab. Ah, but there’s more. Line 4 is repeated as line 11 — not an easy trick!"  (I also noticed that the repeat is often the first three words of the first line, but I’m not sure everyone does it that way.) I came fairly quickly and easily to my repeat, and my rhyming words, had most of the poem written and then decided that my second line didn’t work. I’m also unsure how they’re supposed to work metrically, as some of the roundels I’ve read have fairly strict meter and some are more fluid. I’m happier with my version now than before but still not 100% sure. As with all poetry, I’ll let it sit. And then come back to it. And then let it sit some more. And then come back to it. Several times, over and over, until I finally decide to release it. 

But for now, I’ll share its current form with you.

Roundel

You must goodbye this barren ground.

Turn your face, take leave, though my

wingless form is bound.

You must goodbye.

I cannot follow, though try

I will, for when I’ve found

my wings, I’ll fly

away, away. I’ll soar, crowned

with joy beneath a moonlit sky,

spread my wings without a sound . . .

You must goodbye.

–Kristy Dempsey (2009, all rights reserved)