I’ve been thinking of a new story idea based on an experience I had with a fawn when I was a little girl. I have little time to write lately as I’m working hard on the final illustrations for the Moran story, but often find myself daydreaming about the fawn story when I have a spare moment. Now summer has arrived and our back yard here at Wilder Farm has blossomed with wildflowers and baby wildlife. We have baby turkeys bobbing about in the clover, baby jays and crows squabbling on the fence posts and baby chickadees venturing out of their nest boxes. But perhaps the best of all are the twin fawns that were born in our backyard — I saw one wobbling around just after its birth.

They are growing up, eating our garden, napping in the ferns in front of my studio and playing in the yard. I now have oodles of pictures and have enjoyed watching them grow. I guess I’m going to have to write that story after all!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita spoke last week with Charity Nebbe, the host of Michigan Public Radio’s All Things Considered. There’s a link to the Michigan NPR page here. Or you can listen to the interview by clicking on the start button below:

(It’s about 6 minutes long — please let me know if the audio gadget has any problems…)

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

We just received our first copy of Mogo, The Third Warthog! We’re so excited that the book will be available soon — by July 1st.

This is the second Donna Jo Napoli book Lita has illustrated (the other one was Ugly). Here are a few of the interior illustrations:

When Lita was assigned this project we didn’t have time to go to Africa, but we did spend many days at the San Diego Zoo. Lita sketched critters all day long and we had a great trip. Here’s a picture of one of the warthogs that inspired Lita’s Mogo:

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lots going on lately — outside the studio…

and inside the studio…

A friend of ours provided a caption for this picture of Pu: “Darwin kitty stays indoors today.”

It’s fun to have a bear in the neighborhood again this spring. Lita and her parents have been following the adventures of bears for years. Here’s one of my favorite pre-digital photos of a Yellowstone bear:

(Photo by Dale and Elva Paulson)

And here’s one of my favorite Lita drawings of a Yellowstone bear (with two cubs):

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

New England Voices:
Three Area Authors Read from their New Books
Free & Open to the Public

Tuesday May 20, 2008 7:30 p.m.

Join us for an evening of readings from Barbara O’Connor, Susan Goodman and Lita Judge

Barbara O’Connor will read from her latest middle-grade novel Greetings from Nowhere. Barbara has written 14 novels and biographies for children and her books have won the Massachusetts Book Award and the Parents’ Choice Award.

“O’Connor’s knack for well-developed characters and feisty protagonists is evident, as is her signature Southern charm.”-School Library Journal

Susan Goodman will read from See How They Run: Campaign Dreams, Election Schemes and the Race to the White House. Susan is the author of dozens of non-fiction books for kids.

Using witty anecdotes and clear explanations, Goodman takes readers from the birth of democracy to the Electoral College; from front-porch campaigning to hanging chads. Illustrated by Ellwood Smith.

Lita Judge will read from One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, a 2008 ALA Notable Children’s Book, which she wrote and illustrated.

“Based on a true story of the author’s grandmother and mother, this touching bit of history humanizes war and demonstrates the difference a few people can make.”- Kirkus Reviews

Note: new location at Walsh Hall, Boston College (behind Vanderslice Hall)

This event includes book sales from the Children’s Book Shop and signing, as well as refreshments.

Free and Open to the Public. No registration necessary. Bring your friends and colleagues to introduce them to the FCB!

Where and When:
Walsh Hall, Boston College

Tuesday, May 20 7:30 p.m.

For more information:
The Foundation for Children’s Books

The Foundation for Children’s Books
P.O.Box 320284
21 Stratford Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02132-0003
617-469-7222

The Foundation for Children’s Books (FCB), a nonprofit, educational organization, was founded in 1983 to assist the professionals who most directly influence young readers: teachers, librarians, and parents. We achieve this through professional development programs, including a dynamic speaker series, innovative conferences and workshops, as well as through author visits and residencies in under-served schools.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Last week I joined Lita at her events, in Michigan and then in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today, Lita is on her own and headed down to Atlanta for the International Reading Association Conference. She has a full and deserving schedule of dinners and parties in the evenings. The award luncheon is on Thursday—One Thousand Tracings won the 2008 IRA Children’s Book Award for Primary Fiction. We also heard that one of the IRA special interest groups on “Engaging Literacy Learners with a Global View” is announcing a list of Notable Books for a Global Society and One Thousand Tracings is on that list.

Lita will be doing two autographing events: at the Anderson’s Bookstore Booth (#2452) on Wednesday from 2-3 pm, and at the Hyperion Booth (#1958) from 10-11 am on Thursday. Please stop over and see her if you’re at the conference.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

The 2008 Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards, given by the Jane Addams Peace Association, were just announced last Friday from the Hull-House Museum at the University of Illinois-Chicago. I am very, very proud that One Thousand Tracings received an honor! I’m looking forward to the awards ceremony at the United Nations Plaza in New York this October. I really feel like I’m accepting this particular award on behalf of my grandparents. One Thousand Tracings is their story—their efforts to help people who were suffering after the war and to bring healing to all people. I continue to feel very fortunate that I was able to write their story.

During last year’s awards presentation Susan Griffith read a quote from Jane Addams: “We have learned as common knowledge that much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination which prevents a realization of the experiences of other people.” I love this quote!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

I’ve just sent a pile of Pennies for Elephants artwork to my editor and art director. This is my next book with Hyperion—hopefully a spring/summer 2009 release. The story is based on the true event of Boston area children earning money to buy the first elephants for the zoo in 1914. Here are a few images:

I’ve added these images to the main illustration page on my website and added a few other new images as well.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita is over in Nashua this weekend at the New England SCBWI conference. Apparently she lent her laptop to Kevin Hawkes for the afternoon keynote. I was out yesterday, but when I got home there was a whispered message about the projector not working, and 600 people in the audience, and I could hear Kevin delivering his talk in the background, and Lita said something about being under a table with a bunch of wires and a couple of confused tech guys. These conferences sound fun, maybe I should start going.

I’m proud to say that Lita got the laptop and projector working with about 5 seconds to spare — after the tech guys gave up. If they had listened to Lita in the first place there never would have been a problem…

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

One Thousand Tracings was selected as a 2008 Notable Children’s book in the Language Arts! This list of thirty books was selected by a committee of the Children’s Literature Assembly of NCTE. We saw the announcement and the full list of titles at Educating Alice.

Don’t you think the Children’s Literature Assembly has a great logo (Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes)?

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita is in snowy New Hampshire but I’m back in California where the poppies are in full bloom. And with the coming of spring, our good friend, Howard Mansfield, has a new book out next month—Hogwood Steps Out: A Good, Good Pig Story. Check out the good, good review today at Just One More Book.

Lita and I love pigs. Last year at the IRA conference in Toronto, we made a special trip to visit a pig farm just north of the city. This wasn’t just a pig farm—these pigs had been rescued from precarious situations (I’m sure you can imagine what I mean) and are now living in luxury accommodations on the side of a large pond with nice clean mud and shade trees. Look how happy they are…

Good luck to Hogwood!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

A teacher at New Palestine Elementary sent these pictures and story to Becky Gaines, the publisher of the New Palestine Press. Thanks to Becky for sending this to me. And congratulations to the students at New Palestine Elementary for working on a great service project!

“One Thousand Tracings,” by Lita Judge, gave a glimpse of time in the 1940’s and of the need for people in the war stricken countries for shoes.

(…) This year’’s event included a special service project. New Palestine Elementary students donated good used shoes to aid Indianapolis children in need. Two books the children read helped give an understanding of other’s’ needs. “Those Shoes”, written by Maribeth Boelts, gave a warm understanding of how important a good pair of shoes can be. It can bring pride and dignity to many children. The second book, “One Thousand Tracings”, by Lita Judge, gave a glimpse of time in the 1940’s and of a need for people in the war stricken countries for shoes. They would trace their feet and send them to a family that would search to find their size and send them back to them. The students each traced both of their feet, making over 1,000 Tracings.

The feet tracings are hanging up at New Palestine Elementary to represent their wonderful service project. They had a special opportunity for school spirit, good exercise and, most of all learned how to give to others with their community service.”

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita visited the 1st and 2nd graders at Pompositticut School in Stow, MA yesterday. A lot of the presentation was about dinosaurs so we wanted to post a link to Lita’s dinosaur coloring pages.

They’re also available here.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Andrea and Mark at Just One More Book (JOMB) did a wonderful podcast review of One Thousand Tracings in January at the JOMB coffee shop. I also read this Q&A interview about JOMB and I find their story and partnership quite interesting.

Lita did an interview with Mark in early February—they discussed books and blogs and the topic of partnership. The interview was just posted on JOMB yesterday—you can listen to it here.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita has several presentations in Michigan next week so she’s been preparing some slide images to go along with her talks. I thought these pictures of Lita in Alaska were great.

Lita is a twin, and was born in Ketchikan, Alaska on Revillagigedo Island. Her dad worked as a soil scientist for the US Forest Service on the Tongass National Forest.

This spot is Totem Bight State Park. Here’s a recent picture.

Ketchikan is in the southeast part of Alaska. It gets a yearly average rainfall of 152 inches, and also 40 inches of snow. Ketchikan is one of those places where they have rain storms with 100 mph winds, but they don’t call them hurricanes. And they have thousand foot tall hills, but they don’t call them mountains.

Lita’s family lived in Alaska for 2-3 years and then her dad got transferred (to Utah, then Nevada, Oregon, Wisconsin, and back to Oregon).

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita and One Thousand Tracings were featured on New Hampshire Chronicle in September, 2007. They filmed this last August, right after Tracings was released. Part 1 is about 8 minutes and part 2 is about 5 minutes. Here’s part 1:

And here’s part 2:

Thanks to Jennifer Crompton of NH Chronicle for sending us the video (with permission to post it), and for doing such a good job on this program!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Lita visited Northwest Elementary School (NES) in Manchester, NH last November. I remember she was so impressed with the school and the teachers and the kids after that visit. NES created a Lita Judge page on their school website with some notes from the visit. And the NES kids have been working on their own writing and illustrating - they just sent us their first issue of The Eagle’s Nest.

The cover artwork is by Monique Staples.

We were so impressed with the writing and illustrating in The Eagle’s Nest. Everyone at NES has done a great job!

NES added a dedication to Lita:

The inspiration goes both ways. Thanks NES, and keep up the good work!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Our friend Melissa Stewart just gave us information on a Picture Book Festival she is organizing in Belmont, Massachusetts. This is much more than just a group book signing! Each author and/or illustrator has developed a short presentation, performance, or activity to entertain attendees, especially the children. And the entire event will be filmed and made into a documentary. It’s definitely worth checking out!

Belmont Children’s Picture Book Festival
March 29, 2:00-4:00 p.m.
First Church in Belmont, 404 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA
Free and open to the public

Six local authors celebrate the release of their new picture books with an afternoon of fun for the whole family. Meet the authors and illustrators, hear them talk about their books, and enjoy a variety of performances and activities. Wellesley Booksmith of Wellesley, Massachusetts, will make books available for purchase and signing.

Here are the web sites of the participants: Sarah S. Brannen , Anne Broyles, Timothy Basil Ering, Leo and Laura Jaffe Espinosa, James Kaczman, Melissa Stewart

For more information, contact Melissa Stewart at 978-263-7279 or hbeeprod@msn.com.

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

Thank you to the International Reading Association for honoring One Thousand Tracings as the winner of the 2008 IRA Children’s Book Award! I’ll be going to the IRA Convention in Atlanta this May to accept the award. I’m so excited! The conference falls on the week of our planned vacation to Santa Fe. Dave and I rarely fit vacations in these days, but decided to take the plunge for my birthday. Now Santa Fe will have to wait for another birthday. Dave is being a great sport about it all. He’s as excited about the award as I am (perhaps more). I’ll be traveling to Atlanta with my close friend Sy Montgomery. She’s speaking on a panel—Growing up Green: Environmental Conversations with Authors—with Nic Bishop and Melissa Stewart. Sy received this same award in 2000 for her book, The Snake Scientist. We’re looking forward to the conference, and to sneaking off to see the whale shark at the Georgia Aquarium between events!

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.

One of the envelopes used in the collage on the back cover of One Thousand Tracings was this one:

Nothing in the book mentions that the story takes place in Michigan. But it does. Lita’s grandparents lived in Pinckney Michigan during the time they organized the relief effort. They didn’t move to Plainfield Wisconsin until1949. Michigan readers found the subtle clue and the Library of Michigan contacted Lita last summer stating that One Thousand Tracings was nominated for the 2008 Michigan Notable Book selections. Hyperion sent off a pile of books to the committee. We didn’t expect to hear back—about 300 books were nominated—but in January it was selected as one of twenty Michigan Notable Books! Only two of the selections were children’s books—the other was Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis.

So Lita’s excited for two upcoming trips to Michigan this spring. On March 15-18 she’ll be doing two presentations at the Michigan Reading Association Conference in Detroit, and then she’s visiting 5 different elementary schools, including one in Pinckney Michigan. On April 26 she’ll be at the “Night for Notables” which starts at the governor’s mansion and then moves to the Library of Michigan. Then she’s doing library visits and events in the Detroit area through April 29. I’ll stay home and feed the cats.

(Click here - PDF of Michigan Notable Book Poster - if you want to download the full sized pdf which is about 1MB.)

Originally published at Adventures at Wilder Farm. You can comment here or there.