What your cat is really thinking: the CAT GIRL blog tour roundup

guest bloggerA few weeks ago we did a giveaway to celebrate the release of Cat Girl’s Day Off and asked readers what they’ve always wanted to ask their cats. We pulled a few of their questions and asked our resident cat translator, Natalie Ng (a.k.a. Cat Girl), to get us some answers. Straight from the cat’s mouth:

What’s the secret to always landing on your feet?

Rufus Brutus the Third: You point them towards the floor. What a silly question.

What’s the most annoying thing your pet parent does?

PD: It’s hard to pick just one thing, don’t you think? There’s the nasty medicine they make me take, for one. Not to mention the dry cat food they give me. They only give me wet food once a week, like I need to be on a diet. Ian does sneak me food from the table though, so he makes up for it a bit. Oh, and trying to keep me in the house all the time! A cat’s gotta roam, you know?

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Earth Day 2012: Saving the Pufflings

This is a post from our marketing intern, Maryann Yin:

Everyone at the Lee & Low office has become quite enamored with pufflings since the release of our spring title, Puffling Patrol. Without this book, we probably never would pufflingshave learned about these adorable baby birds because they don’t really appear alongside the pigeons of New York City. In the last five years, the puffin population on the Westman Islands in Iceland has decreased sharply due to environmental changes and global warming. Inspired by the child activists that star in the book and with Earth Day approaching, we started wondering about what we can do to ensure that puffins continue to be part of our world ecosystem.

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Come See Our Authors at TLA!

We won’t be at the Texas Library Association annual conference this week, but if you’ll be there you can still connect with two fantastic Lee & Low authors!

It Jes' Happened coverDon Tate, author of It Jes’ Happened and illustrator of books like Summer Sun Risin’, will be a keynote speaker at the Black Caucus Roundtable (April 19, 8-10AM) and will also appear on the panel “Books, Boys, and Boxing: Motivating Minority Males to Read” (April 19, 2-3:50PM). He will also be signing copies of It Jes’ Happened with Overlooked Books at booth #2629 (April 18, 12-3PM).

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First Look: an excerpt from Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s ‘Summer of the Mariposas’

Today is National Siblings Day, so we thought it would be the perfect time to share a sneak peek of one of our most highly anticipated upcoming books: Morris finalist and Belpré winner Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas!  Out in fall 2012 from our Tu Books imprint, Summer of the Mariposas is a YA retelling of The Odyssey in which Odilia and her sisters embark on a quest through Mexico to return a dead man to his family, and must overcome monsters from Mexican folklore as they journey home.

In the excerpt below, the Garza sisters have found a dead body in their swimming hole, and Juanita, the second eldest, has hatched a harebrained scheme to take their father’s car and return the dead man to his family in Mexico. Odilia, the eldest (and narrator of Summer of the Mariposas), is trying to trick her sisters into staying home by telling them she’ll tell their mother:

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Play Ball! Baseball Stats for William “Dummy” Hoy

Happy Baseball Season, readers! As Major League Baseball is gearing up for another rousing year, Lee & Low is releasing a picture book biography about a little talked about baseball legend who made a powerful impact. William “Dummy” Hoy was a talented player with a standout record who made an immense impact on the way that the great American pastime was played. Hoy’s stats are even more impressive when you consider that he was also one of the first deaf players in Major League Baseball.

Silent Star cover

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Should I be offended? Race-based comedy

I love comedy. Not doing comedy, but watching comedy, either in film or stand-up. Laughter is good for the spirit.

I like all kinds of comedians—from early Bill Cosby to Jon Stewart. I especially enjoy comedy that makes you think. Comedy can broach taboo topics like racism and stereotypes and make them fair game for open commentary. If done well, these comedic monologues on race can reveal the absurdity of people’s belief systems.

Comedian, Ahmed Ahmed
Comedian, Ahmed Ahmed

I searched YouTube for examples of race-based comedy that strikes a nerve and found a wide gamut. Will some of these clips offend some people? Maybe. But if you can push yourself outside your comfort level, looking past the profanity and at times crude subject matter, seriously (or humorously) consider what the comedians are trying to do. Are their jokes healing, even when they point out painful truths? Does a line exist, even for comedians, that should never be crossed, or can anything be made fun of in the context of comedy? Is it easier for a comedian who is a person of color to incorporate race in his/her act?

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Easton West takes over the blog…and there’s a giveaway

Just one week until the release of Kimberly Pauley’s Cat Girl’s Day Off! In celebration, Cat Girl’s star celebrity blogger Easton West has commandeered the Lee & Low Blog kindly volunteered to share her thoughts on the book, her cat, Ty McKenzie’s underwear, and what it’s like being kidnapped by a crazy, psycopathic—well, let’s not give anything away…

Hello there my little poppets! O, Easton, you ask, whatever are you doing here? This isn’t your home-away-from-home-on-the-web where I go for all the celebrity news I can handle. This is the blog of a publisher. They do serious things here. They don’t gossip. They don’t talk about the color of Ty McKenzie’s underwear (red, dearies, in case you were wondering and no, I’m not going to tell you how I know that!).

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California’s new poet laureate!

Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera, who has just been appointed California poet laureate! Herrera is the author of 28 volumes of poetry and other works, including several award-winning children’s books.

In honor of Juan Felipe Herrera, here’s a poem from his book The Upside Down Boy:

After a week of reading a new poem aloud to us every day

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