A Bookish Little Christmas

I’m on winter break from school, which means catchup time for my writing projects! I wanted to update you since my last newsletter. November 21-22 I flew to Denver to participate at NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). I absolutely loved my time there! I finally met one of my critique partners, authors Vivian Kirkfield, who is just as lovely in person as she is online. I also presented with authors Debra Shumaker, Nancy Churnin, Amy S. Hansen, & Linda Katzenberger. Our presentation was titled "Using Historical & Informational Picture Books to Spark Dreams." You can learn more about my NCTE trip and why authors should attend NCTE in a blog post I wrote here. You also might notice another shiny sticker on my graphic novel, The Other Side of Tomorrow. That’s because at NCTE I stopped by the NCT’Asia booth. They had awarded my novel the Freeman Book Honor in graphic novels.

I was very surprised to see my forthcoming book, The Princess & the Grain of Rice at the conference. It was my FIRST time to see it in hardcover! I also met Caldecott & Newbery author, Andrea Wang & snagged her new picture book biography, Worthy.

My picture book, The Princess & the Grain of Rice, publishes February 10th! This book is important to me because it’s my first princess book, and a Korean princess at that! The main character is based on a real Korean queen. And the story is a retelling of The Princess & the Pea. I’ll blog more about it, but you could help me by putting this book as a “want to read” in Good Reads. And here’s a video the illustrator, Honee Jang, made on Instagram. School Library Journal’s review verdict says, “This charming Korean retelling of a familiar story is refreshingly adapted and will have listeners in story hours clamoring for more.” I also love this honest review from the site Cannonball Read.

I’m currently working on the book launch and story time activities around this book, such as a craft and snack. The book launch will be Valentine’s Day morning at Storyhouse Bookpub in Des Moines, Iowa. More about that soon as well. I’m having a plush doll made of the princess in my book. I hope to have pictures in the next newsletter! This book will be so much fun. Do you have a little princess or prince in your family or neighborhood? Please share this book info with them! FYI, Barnes & Noble will have a preorder sale again. I’ll share when I can! And if you know of a place that wants a story time (outside of school hours), tell them about me!

I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season! I just received sketches for one of my next books, God’s Little Zoologist. What a gift to see your words illustrated!

Mr. Cho & I want you to know the greatest gift we can share with you is knowing that God loves you so much, He sent His only son, Jesus, into humanity, to take on human flesh, in order to save us to eternity with Him in heaven. I still love this older song by Lauren Daigle, NOEL.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! Thank you for reading my newsletter & books! I’m thankful for you!