Guest post: Sam Maggs, author of Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History

I'm pleased to have Sam Maggs on the blog today, author of Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History, which is in stores today.

From Goodreads:
Ever heard of Allied spy Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim woman whom the Nazis considered “highly dangerous”? Or German painter and entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian, who planned and embarked on the world’s first scientific expedition? How about Huang Daopo, the inventor who fled an abusive child marriage only to revolutionize textile production in China?

Women have always been able to change the world, even when they didn’t get the credit. In Wonder Women, author Sam Maggs introduces you to pioneering female scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers, and inventors—each profile a study in passion, smarts, and stickto-itiveness, complete with portraits by Google doodler Sophia Foster-Dimino, an extensive
bibliography, and a guide to present-day women-centric STEM organizations.

What to Read After Wonder Women

In my new book, Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History, I wanted to make as many stories of amazing women in STEM throughout history as accessible as possible. Of course, trying to fit profiles of twenty-five ladies (plus 35 more, in sidebars!) into one book means that I didn’t have the opportunity to write as much about each of them as one could – they all deserve their own film franchises and comic books and television shows, frankly.

Luckily, there are many incredible biographers whose work you can check out after finishing Wonder Women if you’d like a closer look into these ladies’ lives. Here are some of my favorites from my research days.

Around The World On Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride.

Peter Zheutlin, Citadel, 2008.

The full story of Annie Londonderry’s nineteenth-century cycling journey around the globe is told in exceptional fashion by Zheutlin, an actual relative of the pioneering woman herself. Annie, one of the first women to excel at self-promotion, is done justice in this biography that aims to shed light on why this young Jewish mother decided to take such an unusual path.

Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America’s First Female Rocket Scientist.

George D. Morgan, Prometheus Books, 2013.

When George Morgan struggled to get his mother’s obituary published because of a lack of corroborating sources, he began a lifelong journey to track down as much information as he could about her past. What he discovered was the story of America’s first female rocket scientist, a truly moving tale that Morgan writes partially fictionalized in the era in which it took place to really give the reader that mid-century feel.

The Life of Anandaibai Joshee, a Kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai.

Caroline Healey Dall. Roberts Brothers, 1888. Available free online.

If you can take a little era-appropriate long-windedness and views on race, Dall’s biography of Anandibai Joshi is worth a read, if only to hear from Anandi in her own words transcribed by Dall. The first Hindu woman ever to set foot in America, and the first Indian woman to get a Western medical degree, Anandi accomplished more in her brief twenty-two years than anyone could ever hope.

Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions.

Michael Helquist, Oregon State University Press, 2015.

I think about how awesome queer birth-control advocate Dr. Marie Equi was at least twice a day, so get fully familiar with her inspiring and intense life story with this new biography – horse whips and all. Yeah, don’t you want to read about her now?

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.

Ben Macintyre, Crown/Archetype, 2012.

Elvira Chaudoir was just one of the many spies involved in Britain’s epic espionage double-cross during World War II – one that was instrumental in their success at Normandy – but she was the only bisexual Peruvian party girl heiress to be one of those spies. Learn all about Elvira (codename Bronx) and her associates’ antics in Macintyre’s thoroughly-researched book.

Nurse and Spy in the Union Army.

S. Emma E. Edmonds, W. S. Williams & Co., 1865. Available free online.

Though undoubtedly a little hyperbolic, Sarah Emma Edmonds’ autobiographical account of her time as a Union spy during the Civil War is not only fascinating because of all the spying, but also because she did it all while disguised as a man. And no one ever noticed. That’s some Alanna: The First Adventure business right there.

Do you have a favorite biography of a kick-butt woman in history? Let me know on Twitter @SamMaggs, and I hope you enjoy Wonder Women!

Visit  the other blogs in the Wonder Women blog tour:

Bibliophile Gathering on 10/3

A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust on 10/4

We Are Word Nerds on 10/5

Pop! Goes the Reader on 10/6

YA Bibliophile on 10/7

Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History by Sam Maggs, illustrated by Sophia Foster-Dimino
Published: October 4, 2016
Publisher: Quirk Books
Pages: 240
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Adult/Young Adult
Disclosure: ARC and finished copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Ah-Choo! Blog Tour: Author Guest Post

I asked my mom if I could have
a pet, or even two.

But every time I brought one home,
my sister went

Ah-Choo!

I'm happy to have Lana Wayne Koehler on the blog today, one of the authors of the book Ah-Choo! It's a story about a boy who wants so badly to have a pet but he can't because his sister is allergic. The text is clever and rhythmical and would make a wonderful class read aloud.


Take it away Lana...

As I sit in my air-conditioned office watching the squirrels scamper up and down trees in the yard, I

wonder what would happen if a squirrel had allergies. Would their eyes itch? Would their nose run? Would they sneeze?

My eyes itch, my nose runs, and I do sneeze—often! I’ve had allergies most of my life and it was when I was sitting in my allergist’s office that I thought about writing a children’s book about allergies.

While doing my research for the book, I found out that allergies in humans are well documented and common. In fact, they’re one of the most common diseases in the USA. They affect 30% of adults and 40% of children. Most people exhibit classic signs such as coughing, itchy eyes, runny nose, and sneezing. For some, allergies can lead to more serious complications like asthma, hives, and even death. It’s the third most common disease in children under the age of 18.

Author photo provided from www.lanakoehler.com

Allergies have always been a big part of my life. Like a lot of people, I spend most of the summer months avoiding grass, trees, and pollen.

However, animals are the biggest allergy of all for me. 

I know that a lot of people love their pet cats. Unfortunately, cats are especially lethal for me. I can go into an allergy attack if I sit in a chair after a cat owner has been there. Sometimes, it’s put a real damper in my ability to travel.

A few years ago, I was offered the opportunity to spend the summer vacationing in the south of France. The owners of the house where we would stay had a cat. What could I do? It was the south of France! So I cautiously accepted their kind invitation. Fortunately, a relative was able to care for the cat and I was able to spend the summer living out my dream in France!

In Ah-Choo!, I wanted the brother to be sympathetic to his sister’s plight. While he REALLY wants a pet, he’s willing to go to any lengths to find one that won’t make her sneeze.  Who wouldn’t want a big brother like that?

Some of the animals in the book are exotic. Has anyone here ever seen a dog from Kathmandu? It’s a special breed from Nepal and our illustrator, Ken Min, did a fabulous job of depicting him.  Ken mentioned that he had to do a lot of research to find pictures of some of the pets. His humorous approach really brings the animals to life!

Gloria G. Adams and I had fun with the repetition in Ah-Choo!. As a former librarian, Gloria knew that it would engage the children for story hour. We also hoped that kids at home would have fun sneezing along with the little girl. We’d love to hear how your children or grandchildren react to the sneezing.  Visit our Facebook pages: Lana Wayne Koehler, Author or Gloria G. Adams. Leave a post and we’ll reply!

Although I don’t have any specific allergies to food, I do have sensitivities to foods like breads and sugar. And, while I’m not allergic, I don’t eat oatmeal. EVER!

Not eating certain foods has put a damper on my ability to eat my way through a city like I did when I was younger. Since I’m from Upstate New York, I grew up on all kinds of spicy, exotic, delicious foods. Sometimes, I still indulge in the foodie delights of my youth and bear the consequences.

Looking ahead, I suppose that it’s time to think about writing a book about food allergies and sensitivities. What would that look like?

Which puts me back in my office looking out at the squirrels scampering up and down the trees in our yard and wondering what would happen if any of them had an allergy to nuts…

Resources:

http://www.aafa.org/page/allergy-facts.aspx

American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. Allergy Facts. http://acaai.org/news/facts-statistics/allergies


Thanks for joining me on the blog today Lana!

Ah-Choo! by Lana Wayne Koehler and Gloria Adams, illustrated by Ken Min
Published: March 1, 2016
Publisher: Sterling Children's Books
Pages: 40
Format: Picture Book
Audience: Primary
Disclosure: Finished copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

My Best Friend's Exorcism Blog Tour: Guest Post by Grady Hendrix

I am so excited to have Grady Hendrix on the blog today. I am not generally a fan of the horror genre, but when I saw how clever and subversive his novel Horrorstör was (the cover looks conspicuously like an IKEA catalog), I knew I had to read it.  He now has a new novel out this week called My Best Friend's Exorcism that takes some of that same cleverness and subversion that he's known for in his IKEA catalog, I mean Horrorstör, and laid out his new book like a high school year book full of 1980s nostalgia.

Here's more info about the book:

Publication date: May 17, 2016
Publisher: Quirk Books
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781594748622

Publisher Summary:
Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act…different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Since Grady's book takes place in the 80s, and since I am known to blog about food on occasion, I present to you Grady's guest post:

The Eighties: Food’s Lost Decade

By Grady Hendrix

As far as food was concerned, the Eighties was the best of times and it was the worst of times. There was the disastrous introduction of New Coke, one of the biggest flavor fumbles in soft drink history. McDonald’s introduced a McPizza that couldn’t fit through its own drive-thru windows and Burger King introduced tiny burgers that fell through its grills. On the other hand, what’s so bad about the decade that gave the world microwave popcorn, Cool Ranch Doritos, and Snapple?

People had a lot of feelings about food back in the Eighties. Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche was a 1982 book satirizing sensitive men that spent 53 weeks on top of the bestseller list, but all it did was make everyone want to eat quiche, which suddenly appeared overnight on every single restaurant menu. Associated with the despised yuppies, it joined pasta salad, sundried tomatoes, pesto, and pretty much anything else that tasted good and didn’t come out of a can as foods considered un-American. Tofu became shorthand for health-obsessed, flavor-hating yuppies, for some reason, even though no one in America was actually eating it.

Commercials pushed food catchphrases into the national vocabulary as Paul Masson swore he would sell no wine before its time, everyone put on posh European accents to ask, “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?”, and Dunkin’ Doughnuts reminded us every morning that it was “Time to make the doughnuts.” Food got political, too. Fried eggs famously came to represent your brain on drugs as part of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign, while the Wendy’s commercial tagline, “Where the beef?” helped Walter Mondale earn the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 when he used the tagline to trash his rival’s policies. Food created celebrities, like the Bartles and Jaymes brothers and the California Raisins who saw their cover of “Heard it Through the Grapevine” land on the Billboard Top 100. Then there were the actual celebrities who became even more famous through food, as Paul Newman rolled out the very first bottles of his Newman’s Own salad dressing, and Jell-O Pudding Pops made Bill Cosby their spokesman. Whoops.

Foreign foods were suddenly everywhere as people realized that gyros from Greece were not made of fried dogs and were actually delicious. Sushi was a punchline to the point where in John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club it told you pretty much all you needed to know about Molly Ringwald’s vapid princess that she brought it to school for lunch. But it was the perfect finger food for Hollywood celebrities who wanted to eat but never get fat, and by the late Eighties sushi was a national fad. Everyone was experimenting with new things, either eating tiramisu or trying to make Cajun blackened fish or giving each other enormous tins of flavored popcorn for Christmas. Even McDonald’s was expanding its horizons, introducing Chicken McNuggets and the McRib, which tasted like a car floormat made of gristle and coated in delicious barbecue sauce.

All this eating led to a lot of dieting, and Carnation breakfast bars became the meal of choice for anorexic teenagers across the country if they weren’t already experimenting with the all-liquid, milkshake-based Cambridge Diet. If you were posh, you could try the Scarsdale Diet, the Rotation Diet, or the Beverly Hills Diet. A freezer stocked with Lean Cuisine frozen dinners became a sign of affluence and body consciousness. Even poor people had diet choices, like Richard Simmons’s gauche Deal-a-Meal, the F-Plan Diet, or the “As Seen on TV” miracle of Grapefruit 45, which promised that nature’s best kept secret was now available in pill form. No rich person was going to touch a diet that reached its customers through infomercials on TV. Besides, the 80s brought the truly wealthy the best weight loss supplement ever invented: cocaine.

Grady Hendrix’s previous novel, Horrorstör, was hailed by NPR as one of the best books of 2014. He lives in New York City.

*~*~*~*

Check out yesterday's blog tour post on the blog A Dream Within A Dream.

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.   

Author guest post: Rebecca Behrens

I am thrilled to have debut author Rebecca Behrens here on the blog for a guest post about her new middle grade book, When Audrey Met Alice.

First Daughter Audrey Rhodes is convinced that living in the White House is like being permanently grounded. Except with better security. What good is having your own bowling alley if you don’t have anyone to play with?

After the Secret Service cancels the party she'd spent forever planning, Audrey is ready to give up and spend the next four years totally friendless--until she discovers Alice Roosevelt’s hidden diary. Alice was a White House wild child, and her diary tells all about her outrageous turn-of-the-century exploits, like shocking State visitors with her pet snake and racking up speeding tickets in her runabout. Audrey starts asking herself: What Would Alice Do? The former First Daughter’s outrageous antics give Audrey a ton of ideas for having fun . . . and get her into more trouble than she can handle!

Rebecca is here today to talk about the audacious Alice Roosevelt, the inspiration for When Audrey Met Alice. I asked Rebecca, since this is a food and travel blog as well as a book blog, if Alice were First Daughter today, what would be some of her favorite Washington, D.C. haunts? 

Take it away Rebecca!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Alice Roosevelt—both the real person and the character in my book, When Audrey Met Alice—was “simply mad for travel,” as the fictional Alice wrote in a diary entry on setting sail for Cuba. Adventurous Alice had a great time on that trip: going to parties and teas, visiting schools, betting on jai alai games, and stuffing herself with Cuban delicacies. Later in the book, she gets excited about a chance to visit New Orleans and stay Avery Island, the famous home of Tabasco sauce. However, Alice found plenty of ways to have adventures at home in turn-of-the-century Washington, DC, too. She’d have even more fun today in DC—and these would be some of her favorite places and activities:

Driving: Alice loved to zip around in her red runabout, racking up speeding tickets galore. Today she could cruise along the Rock Creek Parkway for a spin in town (I imagine she’d toot her horn as she passed under the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge), but rush-hour traffic might make it hard for Alice to drive as fast as she liked. Perhaps she’d avoid Beltway traffic altogether by taking a daytrip to the Skyline Drive, a National Scenic Byway that runs through the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. It would be a great escape during election season, when the drive shows off stunning fall foliage. Of course, the speed limit is 35 miles per hour. We can only hope that Alice would heed that.

Restaurants: Alice was an early foodie, so she’d love the dining DC offers today. From chili and fries at Ben’s Chili Bowl to Ethiopian injera and honey wine at Lalibela, there would be something for her every craving. Alice would have no trouble finding the food of her travels back at home, too. For more Cuban food, she could head to Mi Cuba Café in Columbia Heights for ropa vieja and a guava shake. In 1905, Alice Roosevelt accompanied Taft’s diplomatic trip to Asia, visiting Hawaii, the Philippines, China, Japan, and Korea. (She had a great time and did not disappoint with her own antics, which included watching a Sumo match, wearing a kimono—and jumping into a ship’s swimming pool fully clothed.) I think she’d be very happy with her options for Asian cuisine in DC today; in particular, she’d love the show at a "hibachi-style" Teppanyaki restaurant. Alice probably would try to get the chef to teach her the impressive knife skills on display; after all, she did cut her own wedding cake with a sword.

Dancing: Alice loved to dance, particularly the hootchy-kootchy, which was an early Western-coined name for belly dance. She’d enjoy checking out dance performances at the Kennedy Center today, and I also think she’d love to participate in some of the public dance programs available in DC, like Dance in the Circle, a dance festival sometimes held right in the middle of Dupont Circle. I can imagine Alice sneaking out of the White House to attend incognito—and stealing the show with her moves.

The Smithsonian: Alice wasn’t just hungry for experiences but for information, too. The Smithsonian Institute existed well before her time (the famous Castle building was constructed in the mid-1800s), but Alice would still love exploring all that the Institute’s museums have to offer today. In particular, I think she’d be fascinated by the National Air and Space Museum. After all, it was while Alice was living in the White House (in 1903) that the Wright Brothers achieved the first flight. And of course Alice would visit the National Zoo, considering the menagerie that lived with her in the Roosevelt White House. She’d be a huge fan of Bao Bao the baby panda (and probably would scheme about ways to get a panda cub back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue).

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When Audrey Met Alice hits bookstores on February 4th from Sourcebooks Jabberwocky.
Pre-order your copy today.
Read my review of When Audrey Met Alice.

Guest Post: Derek the Ghost, author of Scary School

The Importance of Middle-Grade Fiction

Or

Why Reading my Book Series Scary School is Guaranteed to Turn your Kid into a Well-adjusted, Ivy League-bound, World-beater Dynamo

By Derek the Ghost

            Let’s start off with this question. Why is reading important for children? Wait. I have better question. Why is absorbing a story in the form of text considered a superior means of story-absorption as opposed to pictures and sound through a television or movie screen?

            Back in the olden days before TV and movies, reading was the numero uno form of self-entertainment. However, like TV of today, using books to take in fictional stories was considered a highly frivolous activity. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only form of reading not considered frivolous was reading the bible.

            So why did the cultural paradigm shift? Television and movies became the dominant form of story dispersion, and suddenly books became the underdog. When books became the underdog, they went from frivolous to intellectually elitist practically overnight. You could argue the same thing happened with theater.

            So, are you actually smarter because you read, or is it just our culture’s perception of reading that merely makes you appear smarter?

            Here’s the answer. You’re actually smarter. 

            It goes without saying that reading requires a basic education. But more importantly, it requires that the brain function in a heightened state of stimulation called Alpha Mode. During Alpha Mode there’s an innumerable amount of split-second decisions taking place. The brain is constantly deciphering letters and interpreting their meaning while at the same time forming imagery to correlate with each phrase. It requires a lot of sub-conscious brain energy and millions of electrical reactions.

            Because reading requires so much brain energy, the brain becomes tired quickly and wants to switch to Beta Mode. Beta Mode is when you are spacing out, vegging out, or just hanging out. You are essentially on autopilot, just taking things in, but not actively participating. When you are driving a car, you are usually in Alpha Mode. But when you suddenly look up and realize you’ve driven ten miles past your freeway exit, that’s right… you switched over to Beta Mode, buster.

            The good news is that reading is like running. When you first start running you can only run a short distance before getting tired. Reading is the same way. The more you read, the more “brain exercise” you’re getting, and staying in Alpha Mode for longer stretches without getting tired becomes much easier. This effect bleeds over into all facets of life. You’ll be able to study longer and more effectively, retain more information, and work more thoroughly and patiently for extended hours. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did this better than anyone.

            Now let me ask you this: Why were kids who had never read anything longer than a 150-page Goosebumps book so eager to read a 750-page Harry Potter book? And why were they able to do it so effortlessly, when reading just one chapter of a schoolbook feels like a Herculean labor?

            Because they loved it. Reading Harry Potter was as enjoyable to most kids (if not more so) than playing video games or watching cartoons. The pleasure of reading those books caused kids’ brains to squirt dopamine into their system, making them feel euphoric and self-confident. There’s something books provide that all their other forms of entertainment cannot – a deep, almost familial bond with the characters. Only books can create that on such a profound level. Remember Kathy Bates in Misery? That’s the dark side of it, but I don’t think anyone went bat-#$#@ crazy when Friends was cancelled.

            The great thing about Harry Potter was the after-shock it created in the middle-grade and YA book market. Kids were addicted to the book. The pleasure they got from the suspense, humor, mystery, and triumph had shot buckets of dopamine into their systems and no other form of entertainment could match that natural high. So, the middle-grade and YA book market exploded with kids seeking their next fix. When the Harry Potter fans grew up, they were naturally attracted to edgier, more adult fare that reflected their changing selves, and the YA market skyrocketed, heralded by Twilight and now The Hunger Games.

            Which brings me to my book series, Scary School. With these books, I had only one goal. I was not trying to write to the best middle-grade series ever. I wasn’t trying to win any Newberry medals for literature.  All I wanted to do with the Scary School series was make kids laugh. That’s it.

            With my background in comedy writing, I felt that I could maybe write the funniest (not the best) middle-grade book ever. Go big or go home, right? I wanted to have at least three laugh-out-loud moments on every page. Did I succeed? You’ll have to tell me, but the most often used words in the reviews of the book have been “hilarious” and “laugh-out-loud funny.” So far so good.

            What will happen when your kids read Scary School will be something very magical. It may very well be the first chapter book your kid reads as well as the first chapter of a life of profound and meaningful achievement. It may also be something a reluctant reader gives a shot because it actually looks fun with that zombie skateboarding kid on the cover. Maybe the only reason your kid gets it is because I’m signing copies at the local bookstore, so you think it would be neat for your kid to have a signed book. Let’s play out that scenario:            

            I sign the inside jacket of Scary School Book One and write him or her a special message with a funny drawing. Your kid is much more excited to receive it than you thought he/she would be.

           

            That night, you hear laughter from across the house late at night. Your kid is supposed to be asleep but is staying up in bed reading Scary School. You figure that’s okay, so you let him/her keep reading, and you keep hearing laughter until midnight. The laughter is forging an imprint on your kid’s brain that reading=fun.

            After finishing Scary School, you child will seek out more books to try and recreate that boisterous experience.

            In the process, the child will continuing growing up, always reading and seeking that next great story. While other kids are watching TV and living their lives in Beta Mode, your child’s brain will be in Alpha Mode 1,000% more often. The heightened brain stimulation for long hours will increase your child’s cognitive functioning far past his/her peers. Not only that, your child will be armed with amazing moral and practical lessons learned throughout the Scary School book series that helps him/her adjust to new situations, treat people with respect and kindness, and fuel him/her with a yearning to make the world a better place.

            This leads your child into doing community service, building the next great invention, and becoming class president.

            Harvard and Yale both offer your child full scholarships, but he/she chooses to cash in on his new invention money and attends Oxford because Scary School taught him/her the value of seeking adventure and meeting different kinds of people from all over the world.

            You don’t miss him/her as you otherwise might have because in the future there’s holographic communication where it seems like you’re actually sitting and talking in the same room together.

            After graduation, your child comes back home where he/she is probably a DA, a famous architect, a prodigious scientist, or CEO of that hot new startup. He/She comes over for dinner one night and puts a knapsack down on the sofa. It falls over, and amongst the futuristic gadgets, you notice an old, dusty copy of Scary School – that book your child read in one all-nighter back in middle school. That book purchased on a whim because the author happened to be signing at the store. You open it up, and read what is says where I signed the inside of the jacket:

Dear (your kid’s name), Have Fun at Scary School! – Derek the Ghost

***

For more info the Scary School series, fun and games, and even tour the school and meet the students and faculty, please visit www.ScarySchool.com  Scary School #2 – Monsters on the March will be released June 26, 2012 online and in bookstores everywhere.