Continuing the Kitten Series...

...and reflecting on children's authors who inspire me.

When the first book in my illustrated kitten book series came out, I posted the first chapter here on my blog as a little taste of the story for you all, but for the release day of The Book of Cymbeline II: A Kitten’s Tale from Fall to Winter, I thought I would try to read the first chapter aloud…to Cymbeline.

I’ll let you watch the video to see exactly how long she stayed in my lap. 😹 Thank you so much to all of you who have already picked up a copy! If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll hop over to Amazon to check out the Kindle ebook or the paperback. If you could take the time to leave it a review, that would be even more amazing! I was so blown away by the sweet reviews left for The Book of Cymbeline I: A Kitten’s Tale from Summer to Fall on Amazon and Good Reads. 😊

One of my favorite photos of growing Cymbeline, taken about a year ago. This was inspiration for the book’s cover!

I have had children’s books on the brain lately! Not too long ago, I unearthed a box from the basement packed with books that I read as a child. Some of them I had been missing (I’m so glad to know where my copies of All of a Kind Family are!), others didn’t bring up any strong memories, although I’m sure I read them once upon a time.

A bookshelf shuffle may be in order to try to fit in the books I found in the box. Also: look closely to find the hidden cat.

Boxes like that are always a bit of a time warp! Holding my worn copy of The Secret Language, I could put myself back into the past when I first read it and wished I could live in a boarding school so I could have a fun midnight picnic like the characters…even if their picnic didn’t quite go to plan. 😆 I remember going to our local Waldenbooks to look for all the different colorful paperbacks in the spin-off Little House series that followed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ancestors. I remember how much I loved Tasha Tudor and Hitty: Her First Hundred Years and The Littles and books that had anything to do with dolls or miniatures. That love of dolls has endured to this day, and you’ll see it popping up in The Book of Cymbeline II. 👍

Middle Grade March should be an excellent time to dip into that box and also continue the 2023 children’s classics rereads that I started in January. My TBR is quite a panoply of possibilities, but I’m excited to see how many I get to!