A Sparkly Review for Sparkly New Friends

Woohoo! Unicorn and Yeti received a Kirkus review! It’s my first ever so I’m extra excited, and it’s a good one too. My favorite quote: “Sparkly, innocent, feel-good fun for readers needing just a bit of extra support before moving on to chapter books.” Indeed! You can read the full review here.

I am so looking forward to this book making it out into the world. I love the characters. I love the way Hazel Quintanilla brought Unicorn and Yeti to life with her adorable illustrations.

Unicorn and Yeti: Sparkly New Friends will hit the shelves in May 2019. You can preorder it now, of course, from your favorite book retailer!

Unicorn and Yeti are Coming to a Scholastic Book Fair Near You!

Announcing Acorn and... Unicorn and Yeti!

I’m so excited to share the news! Scholastic is launching a brand new line and a book I wrote, UNICORN AND YETI: SPARKLY NEW FRIENDS is part of the launch! I can’t help but be thrilled to have a book publishing not only with Scholastic at a new imprint, but alongside amazing author/illustrators Jonathan Fenske, Norm Feuti, and Dav Pilkey. Illustrator Hazel Quintanilla has brought Unicorn and Yeti to life and it’s the perfect match. I just can’t imagine Unicorn and Yeti any other way.

Read the Publisher’s Weekly announcement to learn about this fun and unique new line for early readers!

What Has Happened?

What has happened? I've unwittingly abandoned my little blog that I started so many years ago at the encouragement of my wonderful critique partners. It sure has been a fun journey. How things have changed from way back when I would shudder to post a word anywhere online. Now I blab all over the internet and moderate Sub It Club where I am just happy to be able to keep up in the chat room when I can.

'My' Library
photo courtesy of Zeke & Torsten

The thing is, now I'm a full-time Branch Librarian and that work (along with being a parent of three busy kids and helping run a garlic farm, ever so slightly as my husband tries to make it for me) can be all-consuming. Patron use of 'my' library has grown tremendously over the past year and a half. I am proud to have helped it become an even bigger part of the community and am so pleased that so many people are using the library to their advantage. Of course, I may say 'my' library but it belongs to everyone, that is one of the fabulous things about libraries! I am just the caretaker. Be that as it may, with all of this newly used energy going to the library, something had to give. And though it was not in my plan it seems that blogging has been it.

But I have managed to keep writing books. I mean, I suspect my agent would be disappointed with me if I stopped and frankly, I would be unhappy with me as well. I am sad to say that I have posted none of my news here until now, but my agent Sean McCarthy and I have sold a series of books to the new Scholastic Acorn imprint for beginning readers and it is so very exciting! UNICORN AND YETI: SPARKLY NEW FRIENDS releases on April 30th! I feel so lucky to be working with amazing editor Katie Carella and the fabulous team at Scholastic. Hazel Quintanilla is Unicorn and Yeti's illustrator and I could not be more thrilled with how she has brought them to life. I just love them so. The release of two more Unicorn and Yeti books: A GOOD TEAM and FRIENDS ROCK follow in July and October. Pretty cool huh? If you want to see the info and happenings with my new series I invite you to come check out my new website HeatherAyrisBurnell.com.

Thank you to all of you who still frolic here for writing advice, agent and publisher listings, and even sign up for my newsletter. I have not decided what exactly I will do with this blog. But this is not really the end. I, of course, have ideas for migrating the well-used info to my other sites where it can still be useful, but for now and really the foreseeable future, I am leaving it up for you to use if you need it.

Write on my friends!

Goodreads Giveaway!

My adorable puppy who I still love even though she eats everything just bit through my charging cord so I'm going to make this quick! There's a giveaway for Kick! Jump! Chop! The Adventures of the Ninjabread Man on Goodreads. Go enter! :)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Kick! Jump! Chop! The Adventures of the Ninjabread Man

by Heather Ayris Burnell

Giveaway ends December 21, 2017.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Escargot!

Not too long ago I followed someone on Twitter because she looked interesting. I found her because she entered the giveaway for my book, KICK! JUMP! CHOP! THE ADVENTURES OF THE NINJABREAD MAN, that was happening through Ninjas Read. Miss Gee, known as @MsGeeLvsBooks on Twitter, is a 2nd grade teacher and an aspiring teacher-librarian. Sounds just like my type of gal! When I followed Ms. Gee I had no idea I was entering a contest. And a really cool one at that! Not long after I received this tweet:

@heatherayris you're my 100th follower! So cool! My class is going to pick their favorite picture book to mail to you 😆 DM an address ❤️📚 pic.twitter.com/89LVi4vK9D

Unexpected and exciting! I got in touch with Ms. Gee and soon this cute little pink package arrived. I had run to the post office before work so I went straight to my favorite part of the library, the children's section amongst the picture books, of course, to find out what was inside the package!

I opened it up and there was the most adorable snail I had ever seen! (I put the book up on my shelf to admire it while I read the card!) Ms. Gee's class chose ESCARGOT written by Dashka Slater and illustrated by Sydney Hanson as their favorite book!

Now, I see a lot of books every single day in my work at the library and I was super excited not only because of the beautiful illustrations and the fact that this is a book about a snail. I love snails! I was excited because I had never seen this book before and oh my gosh do I love the story! You see Escargot is a beautiful snail from France and he simply wants two things: to be your favorite animal and to eat the fabulous salad at the end of the book. But wait! There is a carrot and that is trouble. Big, big trouble!


Oooo, la la! I cannot wait to share this story with the kids who come to the library for storytime and tell them about Ms. Gee's 2nd grade class in Virginia and how they chose this very book as their favorite!


Want to hear one more amazing thing? Miss Gee won the copy of my book in the Ninjas Read giveaway. I had absolutely nothing to do with picking the winner on that. It was completely run by the amazing ninja writer, Corey Rosen Schwartz. I'm no mathematician but there has got to be a mathematical lesson in probability on that! Maybe Corey could help us out. Her new book, TWINDERELLA, is a mathy fractioned fairytale.

Mathematics aside, I love that luck, Ninjas Read, and Twitter connected me with this fun new book and let me have a peek into what a second grade class on the other side of the United States from me loves.

A huge THANK YOU to Ms. Gee and her second grade class! You are magnifique!

Enter to Win a First 5 Pages & Query Letter Critique!

Today's the day! KICK! JUMP! CHOP! THE ADVENTURES OF THE NINJABREAD MAN is out from Sterling Children's Books! Here's the back cover blurb: When sparring gets stale, Sensei whips up a new challenge--the Ninjabread Man. The mouthwatering martial artist may be fresh from the oven but his skills are sweet, spicy, and sure to bring some kick to the dojo.

The book is illustrated with cut paper illustration created by an artist team known as Bomboland. I want to show you more! You can look inside the book on Amazon if you like.

So, what can I do to celebrate?

Ninjas Read is doing a Twitter giveaway. It ends at 10pm so if you're on Twitter jump on over and retweet this real quick:
https://twitter.com/NinjasRead/status/916027694051135488

I shared my query letter for THE NINJABREAD MAN on the Sub It Club blog. Plus my agent Sean McCarthy and I talk about why it worked! So, if you're writing a query letter go take a look at Sean's insights.

Here on my blog I'm doing a critique giveaway because, why not? I want to do something! Yes, I specialize in picture books but I've written and edited in all sorts of genres so, writers of all genres are welcome to enter.
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