A new book coming in September

Hi everyone,

A few months ago I told you I’d received sketches for my next picture book, Pumpkin on a Vine. I originally wrote the story to be a class exercise as a favor for a longtime professor friend of mine at Brigham Young University, TERRELL YOUNG, who was working with kindergarten teacher AMY SHAKESPEARE WHITE in Salt Lake City. The kids had a good time following the actions in the story and Amy sent me some very cute pictures of them in action.

Years later I partnered with JANE YOLEN to write a collection of poems about seeds and included the pumpkin poem. GRACE MACCARONE at Holiday House liked the pumpkin poem but couldn’t use the collection. I wrote a watermelon poem to replace the pumpkin, sold Grace that one for a book, and Jane and I placed the seed manuscript with a different publisher. It should be out next year.

Meanwhile, the pumpkin poem, now titled Pumpkin on the Vine, has just been listed on Amazon with a September 8 release date. I’m delighted.