I love games! I play a mean game of Scrabble (better not play with me unless you regularly put down words like “ai,” (a three-toed sloth), “jo” (a sweetheart), or “qadi” (a Muslim judge)). Scrabble is probably the only “mainstream” game I play. Most of the games I play are games the average person has probably never even heard of. They’re not games ( Read more... )

The first time I was invited to do a radio interview, I said, "no, thank you." And I didn't do it ( Read more... )

The Coralville Public Library's teen book discussion group is one of 16 Teens' Top Ten groups in the country. That means they receive galleys from publishers and have a chance to share with the publishers (and the book group facilitators!) what they think. They also nominate the books for YALSA's Teens' Top Ten list ( Read more... )

..."A film crew was here ( Read more... )

Did I really title that last post “highlights of the month?” That’s interesting because the real highlight of the month hadn’t even happened yet.


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It's been quite a month. I've only been home two weekdays (six days total, the entire month). I breeze in...do my laundry...pet the dog...hug the family...and breeze back out again ( Read more... )

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I had a great school visit today...well-prepared, enthusiastic kids...great staff. There were paw prints all over the school announcing my visit, and a group of fourth graders had put on a little skit last week for the rest of the school to get them excited about my visit (I asked if they'd perform it for me today and they did...it was wonderful ( Read more... )

Every now and then I'm reminded that I have written other books besides The Buddy Files...and My Mom's Having a Baby.

I don't want to name the reviewer (and no, I don't know him...my husband came across the review while reading what people are saying about My Mom's Having a Baby), so I'll just call him K. Here's K's review (published here exactly ( Read more... )

If you can stand one more post about all this ( Read more... )