A big congratulations to Julia Papell, the winner of the What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know writing contest! To see her fabulous winning entry, click here.

And here is some cool news:

What My Mother Doesn’t Know and What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know have already been translated into German, French, Korean and Indonesian, but I just found out that they are going to be translated into Swedish, too. Detta gör mig mycket glad! (which is Swedish for: this makes me very happy!)

And here is something else that makes me very happy:

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies has been chosen as one of three books that will be used in a GREAT STORIES CLUB grant, given by the American Library Association to libraries all across the country, along with The Afterlife by Gary Soto,The Rules of Survival by the lovely Nancy Werlin. Tell your librarians about it so that they can apply to be one of the lucky 265 libraries to receive 33 free books to give away to local teens!

And here is some exciting news for those of you with little sisters and brothers:

My first picture book has been published!

It’s called VIOLET AND WINSTON.

I co-wrote it with my awesomely talented husband, Bennett Tramer—who’s famous for writing zillions of episodes of the hit TV show SAVED BY THE BELL.  And boy, did  we get lucky—it was illustrated by our friend Chris Raschka. Chris won the Caldecott Award a couple of years ago—which is like getting the Oscar for illustration.

VIOLET AND WINSTON is about a snazzy swan named Violet, and an absentminded duck named Winston. Violet likes to wear fancy hats and high top sneakers, just like me. She and Winston are the best of friends despite being very different birds.
 
We hope you’ll rush right out and buy it at your local bookstore to share with all the little kids in your life. If they don’t have any on hand when you get there, just ask them to order it for you—it only takes a few days and doesn’t cost anything extra.

And here is something fun for those of you on Facebook—some very awesome and clever girls, Rylee Ennis and Lisa Stoiser, have set up a group called “The Church of Sonya” which has some pretty funny “commandments” listed on it. If you want to check it out, click here.

Well, that’s all for now.
Until then, happy reading!

xx,
Sonya