Southerners Writing Books

I could get lost in children's authors' blogs. Especially those writers from the South who remind me of home. Last night I discovered the blog of Deborah Wiles. I'm a big fan of her books and heard her speak about her path to publication at a conference a year or so ago. I drooled over the blog's yummy food references- what's summer without cornbread and vegetables from the garden? Or at least reading about it...
And via Deborah Wiles, I got to "meet" another Southerner, Colleen Salley. I rushed right down to the library to find her picture books and the voice of my grandmother telling me stories jumped off the page of Epossumondas. "You don't have the sense you were born with," Possum's mama says about the truck possum drags home. (And I don't mean the 4-wheel drive kind!) I stopped by the bookstore and ordered the picture book and can't wait to read it to a child I know.


Speaking of reading aloud and books by Southerners- I think The Underneath might be a book kids will appreciate hearing out loud. Read my review in today's Christian Science Monitor. How's that for sneaking in a reference to myself? But really, it's all about Kathi Appelt's newest book, well worth reading.