Bartography Express, September 2020
Hey there,
I have a happy update to my May announcement that there will be a Spanish edition of my picture book with illustrator Ekua Holmes, What Do You Do with a Voice Like That? The Story of Extraordinary Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

Not only has the translation already been completed, but it was performed by Carmen Tafolla, a former State Poet Laureate of Texas, a professor emerita at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and a winner of both the Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a picture book and the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award.

This is thrilling for me, and I can't wait to read the Spanish edition for myself.

In the meantime, I've had various occasions recently to record author readalouds of the original edition, as well as Fire Truck vs. Dragon and Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions.

Sometimes, I have company:
Readalouds (and the occasional dog snout) are only part of what I offer when I perform virtual author visits. I customize these in order to meet the needs of each school that hosts me, and we have lots of options.

I'd love for the students and teachers nearest and dearest to you to be able to see for themselves. So, for virtual visits by me — live or pre-recorded — taking place this October, I'm offering Bartography Express subscribers a 50% discount on my online presentation fee.

If you'd like to make the most of this author-visit sale, the best next step is to contact me through this page.
For more insights into author visits in general, be sure to check out the Author Visit Podcast hosted by Bonnie Clark and Shanda McCloskey.

I'm especially partial to the episode that Shanda and Bonnie recorded last week, because their guests were My Favorite Author in the Whole Wide World and me, and it was a joy for us to join them in their goal of "demystifying the art and business of school author visits for authors, illustrators, educators, librarians, parents, and booksellers."

If Shanda's name rings a bell, that's because she's also the illustrator of Fire Truck vs. Dragon. She and I still have not yet met in person, which is not uncommon for picture-book pairings of author and illustrator, even when there's no pandemic to contend with.

But Shanda and I have another online chat together coming up next week with a fun bunch of Perma-Bound school library customers in North Texas, as well as some additional collaboration in the works. Stay tuned for that, and while you wait, check out these printable zine activities (in both English and Spanish) that she's created for Fire Truck vs. Dragon!
I have spent much of my summer focused on various writing projects: early drafts of picture book fiction, research for nonfiction, revisions for both, and a fair amount of wordplay for an effort that might well end up being only an extended (very extended) brain-stretching exercise, but we'll see.

But occasionally, news from the outside world about my existing books has made its way to me, and the one last piece I want to tell you about this month comes from Oregon.

Whoosh! has been nominated for the 2020-21 Oregon State Literacy Association's Patricia Gallagher Award. Not only does this children's choice program make the first time that one of my books has been recognized by that organization, but this honor also marks the 20th state list that this collaboration with my friend Don Tate has appeared on. (You can see the complete list here.) Thank you, OSLA!

Now it's time for my Q&A and new-book giveaway, which this month focuses on singer and icon Selena. Actually, it focuses on her twice, with giveaways of both Queen of Tejano Music and Reina de la música tejana, the picture book biography written by Silvia López and illustrated by Paola Escobar.

If you’re a Bartography Express subscriber with a US mailing address and you want to be the winner of both editions of Queen of Tejano Music, just say so in a reply to this email before midnight on September 30, and I’ll enter you in the drawing.

In the meantime, please enjoy my two-question Q&A with Silvia and Paola, which begins with me asking: