A Book Club, Marvelous Articles, Awesome Mugs, and Snuggly Things

Hi everyone!

Have you ever wanted to be in a book club with me?  Well, here’s your chance!  I’m hosting a Newtonville Books Celebrity Bookclub (I know, that’s me! I’m the celebrity! isn’t that wild? Dancing with the Stars, here I come!) 😉 on Saturday, April 29, at 2pm and I would love for you to join me if you can!  The book we’re reading is one of my favorites ever:

Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson!  It’s a graphic novel about a shapeshifting girl who decides to sign on as sidekick to a supervillain, and I don’t want to give away more than that, but it’s very funny, surprising, thoughtful, and brilliant, and I’m so excited to chat with you guys about it!

April 29 also happens to be Indie Bookstore Day, so while you’re IN an Indie Bookstore, you can celebrate by buying some awesome books and supporting a fantabulous bookstore.  ?

April 29 is ALSO the day of the Climate Change March, organized by the Peoples Climate Movement, so I will totally understand if you go to that instead!  I’m hoping to go to the rally at noon in Boston before I head to the bookstore.

And!  To celebrate the confluence of all these exciting events!: for each book that’s bought in Newtonville Books between 2-4pm that day, I’ll be donating $5 to the Environmental Defense Fund!

So come hang out with me!  Talk about a phenomenal book!  Support indie bookstores!  And save the world!  All at the same time!  Best day ever!  ?  ?  ?  Yay!

I also wanted to post a couple of things about the events that I’ve done in the last few months — first of all, the Simmons panel with Kristin Cashore, which was one of the most fun events ever!  It was basically pretty much what happens whenever Kristin and I get together to watch Orphan Black or So You Think You Can Dance, except we weren’t on my couch and I wasn’t wearing pyjamas, and there was a moderator!  (Martha Parravano from the Horn Book, who was SUPER wonderful and made it so easy for us!)

Here’s the Horn Book write-up of the event . . .

and here’s the Publishers Weekly write-up.  Both of these articles are so great and smart and made me so happy; I’m sorry I didn’t share them here earlier!

I was also recently in Fort Meyers, Florida, for the Southwest Florida Reading Festival, which was a lovely trip.  The best part is always meeting Wings of Fire readers — everyone was so awesome! — including, this time, an amazing artist and writer who’s kind of a star in the Wings of Fire fan community, and who I was so happy to finally meet: RhynoBullraq!  And he brought me the most WONDERFUL mug, you guys!

   

Those are the heroes of Books 1-10 in order — and they’re so perfect!  I’m kind of in awe of how great these dragons are; I wish I had a tenth of his artistic talent. ?  I’m keeping it on my desk now so I can look at it all the time.  Thank you so much, Rhyno!  It was so great to meet you!

What’s Making Me Happy Right Now: Planet Earth IIthe nature documentary on BBC America — holy pygmy sloths, you guys!  This show is CRAZY AMAZING.  It’s like Game of Thrones but with actual dragons (Komodo dragons, but they’re scary enough!) and snakes of doom and baby lizards that have to RUN FOR THEIR LIVES the minute they hatch and golden eagles battling in the mountains and baby spider monkeys hurling themselves around the rainforest and terrifying wasps eating teeny-tiny tadpoles and other tadpoles wriggling out of their eggs to leap to the safety of the pond below and me completely freaking out at the television.  I love it to bits and pieces.  Not least because now I know what a viscacha is.  Do you?  Have you ever seen one?  If not, go and Google image search them right now.  I’ll wait.

or, better yet, I’ll go take a picture of my TV!

EEEEE I KNOW, RIGHT?  Is that not LITERALLY THE CUTEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN?  Don’t you want to just snug it and love it and SMUSH YOUR FACE INTO IT?  I think snoozing viscachas should be everyone’s wallpaper all over the world, so whenever we’re stressed, we can all look at them and take a deep breath and dream of being as blissfully zonked and snuggly as they are.  ?

Speaking of which, I am off to zonk, but I wish you all a sunny April full of books and marching and joy!

What We’re Reading:
Me:  A Civil Contract, by Georgette Heyer; Textbook, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal; and Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded, the new book by Sage Blackwood (yay!)

With my bears: We’re still reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (and loving it); also The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, by Shannon and Dean Hale; National Geographic’s 5,000 Awesome Facts (About Everything!) 2 with my bigger bear; and the Nate the Great books with my littler bear