zinnia and the bees is out today!
Today’s the day! Zinnia and the Bees is a published book in the world—hooray!
And because Zinnia is a knitter and yarn bomber, here’s a photo of me holding the crocheted cover(!) made to match by yarn bomber extraordinaire, Jenny Brown. So cool, right?
(click to enlarge)
I started this story close to ten years ago. The seed of it was the idea of bees swarming around and settling on Zinnia’s head, a metaphor for all the stuff that’s out of her control. The heart of it is about finding home, both for the bees and Zinnia. The process of it showed me my own writing home, with young readers as my audience. And the best part of it is that now I get to share it with them and you.
You can read more about the origins of the book in this guest blog post I wrote, up today at the awesome blog, Pop Goes the Reader.
Here are places where you can purchase Zinnia and the Bees for yourself, for a middle grade reader you know (that’s roughly 8-12 years old), or for a school library or classroom:
*Your local, independent bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or Indiebound.
*You can also check it out from your local public library (go libraries!), or request they order it if they don’t have it. (That would be a lovely thing to do and I’d appreciate it immensely.)
And if you do read it and leave a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Goodreads, I’ll be forever grateful as reader reviews are so helpful to authors.
A giant thanks in particular to my agent, Rick Margolis, and my editor, Ali Deering, both of whom made this book possible, and a whole lot better. Plus, Laura K. Horton who created that beautiful cover and the whole team at Capstone!
If you’re in Los Angeles, my book launch is this Saturday, August 5th at Skylight Books! Or if you’re in Portland, Seattle, or Vancouver BC, I’m coming your way soon! Details here. Hope to see you soon.
Cheers!