Cherie Colyer (author of teen novel Embrace) regularly interviews fellow children’s book authors on her blog. This week she interviewed…me! Cherie asked a lot of good questions, and I especially appreciated having the opportunity to answer one about who my hero is: My mother is my hero. I am the youngest of seven, my father […]

Hey, I have a new book out! National Geographic School Publishing used a true story about my previous Seeing Eye dog Harper in a new supplementary textbook called Lend Me a Paw, and it was just published last month. Lend Me a Paw is part of National Geographic School Publishing’s new Ladder Series, which they […]

I was extremely flattered when author and illustrator Sheila Welch asked me to participate in a book festival she was putting together in Freeport, Ill, and oh so disappointed to have to say no: Freeport is far away from Chicago and had no public transportation options. As you are about to find out from this […]

When the packet of thank you notes from the fifth graders at St. Mary of the Lake School arrived in the mail, a light bulb went on over my head: take them along to my presentation at Northern Illinois University! The undergraduates in the class Whitney and I visited last week at NIU are studying […]

As a kid, spending three days with a bunch of schoolteachers would have sounded like the ultimate form of punishment. I guess wisdom really does come with age — when the Illinois Reading Council contacted me last Fall to see if I’d be interested in coming to their annual conference and spend time with thousands […]