Happy Monday! Please join us in a warm welcome for new Middle-Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction category organizer Susan Thomsen:
Fall is one of my favorite times of the year, with leaves crunching under my feet, apples to be picked, and the resplendent glory of the Cybils nominations! That's where so many good new books come to my attention. Just one example: in 2008, through this process, I "discovered" an easy reader, Houndsley and Catina and the Quiet Time, which quickly became a personal favorite and a book I was eager to share with some first-grade reading buddies.
This year I'm organizing the committees for the Middle Grade and Young Adult Nonfiction award, and I can't wait to see which nominees become the ones I jump up and down for.
I've been writing about children's books at my blog, Chicken Spaghetti, since 2005. I've worked at magazines, written about theater, Elvis, and coffee, among other subjects, and tried to squeeze a wiggly toddler into a snowsuit. That toddler is somehow now 10, and I live in Connecticut with him and his dad and a small menagerie of pets, including two opinionated chickens.