Be Dazzled by Kidlit411!

Are you writing or illustrating children's books? If so, I hope you've heard about Kidlit411! Authors Sylvia Liu and Elaine Kiely Kearns gather loads of awesome writing and illustration info and share it, for free! They also have a fabulously active Facebook group. On top of that they have a weekly newsletter that you should definitely subscribe to. And this week I am excited to share that the newest Unicorn and Yeti book, Razzle Dazzle, is up for grabs! To enter just go to the Kidlit411 Weekly 411 (scroll down a bit to find U&Y) and enter via the Rafflecopter link. There are other great books being given away too, and it is a weekly occurrence! Win, win! Plus if you haven't been there before, you will be dazzled by the plethora of kidlit information right at your fingertips!

Giveaway ends on 11/6.

 

Razzle Dazzle

Unicorn and Yeti Fun and Games just released, and inside you get to see the cover of book 9!

Razzle Dazzle is set to release in September 2024! Isn't the cover dazzling?

As always, the graphic novel style early reader has three separate stories. In the first story Unicorn and Yeti go camping. Okay, at least Yeti goes camping. Unicorn just may be glamping. Why? So they can make s'mores, of course. In the second story they find a hot spring which is the perfect place for Hazel to create some really funny illustrations! And for the third story I am so thrilled that I got to write a story about the moon being made of cheese. The concept is something that always got me thinking when I was a kid. Plus, Yeti gets to ride on Unicorn's back again, and that, my friends, makes for some great illustration! I could not be more thrilled with the cover of this ninth Unicorn and Yeti book. Razzle Dazzle is available for preorder now from your favorite bookseller. 

 

Unicorn and Yeti Fun and Games!

Hello! I seem to have taken a very long break from my blog here. It's my first blog post of 2023 and it's on the last day of the year! But I have not been taking a break from writing. There are now 8 books in the Unicorn and Yeti series! Fun and Games was released on December 26th. 

In Fun and Games, Yeti teaches Unicorn how to do a better job at hiding when they play hide and seek because, of course, Yetis are extremely great at hiding. They figure out how to play their favorite games together. Unicorn's favorite is a fancy game while Yeti, like my husband, simply needs a deck of cards. No poker for these two though! In the third story Unicorn and Yeti put a puzzle together. It isn't easy! 

I'm always amazed at what I learn when I am writing about these two characters. Apparently, I am quite hard on myself. I mean, I know that, but the simplicity of writing about two characters and the different way they put together a puzzle really illustrated it. I learned that some people actually do look at the puzzle picture when putting a puzzle together. Shocking! I do not. Why do I make it so hard? It's not like there's a rule. Nope, I just like to make things harder.

But it's not hard to get the new Unicorn and Yeti book, or any of the books in the series. They're available from your favorite retailer. And I'm going to try to take it easy on myself in 2024. Maybe I'll even blog a bit. 😎

A Fancy Interview!

Not too terribly long ago, interviewer extraordinaire Patricia J. Murphy contacted me and wanted to talk. How fun! She asked me lots of questions about my being a librarian, a garlic farmer, and of course, a writer. I don't often talk about all the things I do, but Patricia made it fun and I made a new friend. And now I can also say that I am thrilled to have an interview in Publisher's Weekly! Bonus: The interview features Unicorn and Yeti's brand new book, Stuck With You. 

I think my agent, Sean McCarthy, introduces the interview best, "Come for the insight about how being a librarian informs Heather's writing, and stay for the revision/garlic farming metaphor that somehow makes perfect sense."

Pretty good huh? If you're interested, pop on over and give it a read at PublishersWeekly.com

Together!

The Unicorn and Yeti team has been working hard to put the finishing touches on book six, Together--virtually of course, and it has been so much fun. I love revising and editing! I love poring over Hazel's illustrations!! And I love this cover!!!

How can you not love those lips?!  And those fabulous hats!

The book's title was chosen quite a long time ago, but now it feels even more meaningful with how much we have had to stay apart in the past year or so. In the stories, Unicorn and Yeti enjoy each other's company (mostly.) They spend time watching things zip, zigzag, and zoom in the sky. Unicorn wants to do all the things Yeti does--and becomes a copycorn! And, as you can tell from Hazel Quintanilla's fabulous cover art, Unicorn and Yeti have a tea party. Of course there are rainbows and sparkles and magic! I hope that readers will love it as much as I do, and I hope that it will inspire some tea parties as well! I do love a good tea party.

Unicorn and Yeti, Together releases on March 1st, 2022 and is available from your favorite bookseller!

Book Joy Live!

Book Joy Live happens every week and I love watching when I can. John Schu has so much enthusiasm for books and I always learn about some great new children's books when I watch. (And my heart wants them all!) 

So, it is amazing to say that today, Hazel and I were on Book Joy Live with John Schu! It was a lot of fun talking all things Unicorn and Yeti with Hazel and John, plus we did a reader's theater-- we read aloud the first story from Fair and Square (around 18:00). And our Editor, Katie Carella even popped in! It was my first live author appearance and I couldn't have asked for it be more fun.

Thank you to everyone who watched and was so supportive! I loved reading through the comments on the Facebook feed. I've embedded the recording incase you missed it and want to watch. We can all use more book joy in our lives! You can also find the recording on the Scholastic Book Fairs Facebook page and on John Schu's website. 

 

Fair and Square!

 

Hey, hey, it's an exciting day! 

Unicorn and Yeti book 5, Fair and Square, is out into the world!

As you can see from the book cover, in Fair and Square Unicorn and Yeti take on painting! They also build a forest out of shapes, and Yeti makes a pie! Hazel Quintanilla's illustrations are so amazing, as usual, and bring such joy and wonder to the stories. I am so excited for kids to get to read it!

Looking at the completed book I can see a lot of my family in these stories. When my kids were small we had so many fun painting days. We'd build with blocks and sticks and whatever we could find to make towers and caves and robots--whatever struck our fancy. Our house was also under construction so we always had lots of building going on. My husband
built our house in his time off from working construction, so mornings before work, evenings after, and weekends.

I did a lot of holding up of big pieces of stuff, handing of tools, and nailing of nails--construction support. But let me tell you that a lot of things that you hold up during construction are not easy! And when we built our barn I had to get really high up and I did not have a trusty unicorn to fly me! (I definitely did my best to stay close to a holding place like I am in the picture.) It seems to me that sort of dedication deserves some sort of a medal. But we settled for pie. I made us lots of pies, and that seems to be a better prize anyway. Is the appearance pie in this book a coincidence? I certainly didn't think about it when I was writing the book but now I wonder!

 

Here's the family building a barn. The kids were older and loved helping!

Building, painting, pie making-- it's all fun and magical to me! I'm thrilled that Unicorn and Yeti is a 5 book series now and am so happy to be able to share more Unicorn and Yeti stories with readers! Just look at all of those amazing covers with those two amazing friends!

I can't wait to get to show you all book 6, Together. It comes out in 2022!