It's been a good long while since I've posted here,
but I'm so excited to share that my newest picture book releases today!

THINK BIG, illustrated by the vivid and imaginative Vanessa Brantley Newton,
is a celebration of all things art. And when I say all things I mean all things.

(Including cooking? Yep.
Knitting? Yep.
Photography? Yep.
Pottery, writing, drawing, song? Yep yep yep yep.)

If you want to know more about the how's and why's of that, here's a guest post I did at Cynsations today, thanks to the graciousness of author extraordinaire Cynthia Leitich Smith!

(And you should definitely pop over there if you'd like a copy of THINK BIG because there's a giveway!!! Wahoo!)

And if you'd like to know what the kind folks at Kirkus think of the book, you can have a look here. (That mention of Glee is, surely, the closest I'll ever get to having a TV show of my own so yay for that!)

But, blah blah blah and linkety link.
What I REALLY want to say is this.
It is summer. There are kids on vacation all over, at least, the northern hemisphere.
And there is a lot of competition for their attention.
Video games, blockbuster matinees, swimming and sleeping in and reading for pleasure.
There are also just an endless array of fun, creative, self-inspired artistic opportunities at their fingertips.

Maybe they'll make a pinata! 
Or learn how to finger-knit!
Or write and direct and perform a play (like the truly renown Mystery at Palm Hotel I did with my cousins about 35 years ago).

Whatever it is, I hope you'll let them make a mess, make some noise and THINK BIG!!!

Well, it's been awhile since my beloved Poetry Sisters and I
have banded together to make merry.
Life, as you know, interferes. 
But as we chatted during National Poetry Month,
we thought of an easy way to rectify that:
haiku!

We worked together on a renku — a string of haiku and 2-lined stanzas — linked seasonally and semantically.
Andromeda debuted it on her blog this morning and I'm going to share it here, too:

The Poetry Sisters' Daisy Chain

fall leaf in April
wearing last season's fashions–
shunned by the green crowd                           lps

nature’s first green is gold
progeny emerge in flame                                aj    

white melts into green
gardens blush Crayola proud  
blooming shades of spring                              tsh

strolling down the pebble path
rose-cheeked dreamer lost in thought            aj

palest pink dogwood
April breezes whisper by
petals flutter down                                          kf

ink dries on palest pages
garden rows plow down sillion                       aj

Brash green garter snake
Hoe laid beside June daisies
Book and tart limeade                                   sh

serpent jewel, puckered words,
work abandoned, glory claimed                    aj

afternoon drifts by                                       
wispy clouds, half-closed eyelids
distant playground sounds                              lps

cloud congestion, dully pewter
petrichor from distant patters                       td

tapped on leaden skies                                td
rain’s persistent percussion
arrhythmic ad lib    

a morse-code chicken scratch                     lgs
a fresh start too hard to resist

the rain leaves its mark —                             lgs
such an inscrutable plot
begs to be re-read

red again so soon and down
persimmon fingers shiver                             aj

(Much love and credit to Laura Purdie Salas, Andromeda Jazmon, Tricia Stohr-Hunt, Kelly Fineman, Sara Lewis Holmes and Laura Purdie Salas…)

Visit Wild Rose Reader for Poetry Friday today. 

On Friday, I left home at 5:00 a.m., drove to Houston,
did a full day's school visit and drove home again. 
It was not the most haiku-ish day, if you know what I mean. 
Which is why my piece for that day is about … coffee.

Haiku 27
4/27/2012

First sip burns bitter
and still I take another.
Black sky grows milky.

And then it was the weekend.
I just love weekends.
And spring break.
And summer break.
I would rather have my kids knocking around here a bit than rushing off every morning like the world's a'fire.

Haiku 28
4/28/2012

A bare foot dangles,
feather duvets swell, settle.
Who says it's morning?

Haiku 29
4/29/2012

girl with basketball
dad with good time on his hands
unbeatable team

And today?
Today is Monday, in case you hadn't heard….

Haiku 30
4/30/2012

like swimming cross-wise
each stroke long, effortful
until I give in

Haiku 26
4/26/2012

Each turn of the wheel
spokes fly and land, fly and land.
Am I bird or boot?

Dreams are weird sometimes.

Haiku 25
4/25/2012

The fan churns the air
Imagine sleeping outdoors,
birds on your pillow

Oh, blow me down. 
We have had a true braided-string of crazy at our house this past week.
Some biggish hurdles, some little Murphy's Law-type stuff.
But all put together in one big pile, sheesh, it was enough to make me a little dizzy.

So, one casualty has been my blogged haikus. 
Partly because we were down a computer (that was one of the Murphy's Law-type issues) and partly because I just could not make the time to make it happen.

BUT. The good news???
I still wrote a haiku each and every day in the notebook next to my bed and I'm going to post them all now.
And I have high, high hopes that this next week will go as planned, one haiku at a time.

Haiku 18
4/18/2012

Conjugating verbs
Thinning out the garden plot
What goes next to what?

Haiku 19
4/19/2012

Running in the dark
Each step is an act of faith
The trail trips me up

Haiku 20
4/20/2012

12-day old baby
downy head against my neck
fixes everything

Haiku 21
4/21/2012

Is this a cliche:
"a tulip like a girl's skirt"
even if it's true?

Haiku 22
4/22/2012

Most things are better
in a boat, on the water
Spider thinks so, too

Haiku 23
4/23/2012

Cat in the garden
The wind shakes the old oak clean
Cat in the catkins

Haiku 24
4/24/2012

Wind chimes, crisp blue sky — 
Is there a wrong side of bed?
The squirrel still complains.

Haiku 17
4/17/2012

springtime on the porch
each strand of wind like a string
sweetheart with guitar

Haiku 16
4/16/2012

bare branch without blooms
my ring is at the jeweler's
and I miss it so

For days now,
our Tall One's been suffering through
a late season flu.

I'm aching for her…

Haiku 15
4/15/2012

her fever rages
each soft cheek a burning bush
cool cloth can't slake fire

Today I read to 40-some kids in a grocery store in San Antonio, with a lovely mom-blogger next to me reading the same books in Spanish, and everyone happily munching on Cheerios the whole time.

You probably know already that the good folks at General Mills pair up with the good folks at First Book every year to get millions of books out to millions of kids via their breakfast cereal boxes. And I did say millions. Wow. This is the 10th year of the really smart and generous Spoonful of Stories campaign, and I am so honored to have been a part of it twice — with All the World and Noodle & Lou. 

It is powerful recognition that books feed children and help build whole and healthy people. What's not to love?

Haiku 14
4/14/2012

kids like little birds
choosing each O carefully,
making nests of books