And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for . . .

And by “you’ve all” I mean “me”.

Yes, today marks the official release of my book co-written with Julie Danielson and Peter Sieruta, Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature!!  To celebrate we’re engaged in a blog tour.  Head on over to 100 Scope Notes for our first post in which we are grilled by the great children’s authors, illustrators, and librarians of the past or, if listening is more your thing, check out my appearance alongside Jules on the Let’s Get Busy podcast (and then look at our full schedule of blog appearance at the bottom of the screen here).

To celebrate, Jules and I are doing something a bit out of the ordinary.  As you may know, on our Wild Things blog we systematically posted a lot of the information that never made it into the final book.  Now that we’re here at the day of the book’s release we’re done with doing that.

HOWEVER!  Does that mean the fun has to stop?  Of course it does NOT!

Starting tomorrow the blog at Wild Things is going to start up again.  Only this time, instead of posting hidden gems about past children’s books we’re posting hidden gems about current ones.  Which is to say, videos.

We solicited a great many authors and illustrators with 2014 book releases to film themselves discussing some behind-the-scenes stories about those books.  Want the skinny on Cece Bell’s El Deafo or N.D. Wilson’s Boys of Blur?  What’s the real scoop on where Jenni Holm got an idea for The Fourteenth Goldfish?  And why, for the love of all that is good and holy, is Jon Scieszka wearing a fez?!?

The answers soon.  Because trust me when I say that if you thought you loved their books before, you’re really gonna love what they have to say now.

To kick it off, please enjoy this faux PBS documentary about a children’s author who never was.  It feels appropriate to include it here.