It’s been a year! Here, on cue, comes 2025 with its round, comfortable numerals, as full as the world. I wish all well as we enter this second quadrant of the millennium.
For a wrap-up, here are links to some blog posts and interviews from this year. The debut year of my middle-grade novel The Monarchs of Winghaven brought many opportunities, and I’m grateful to those who reached out and gave me the chance to showcase my book, to my editors and team at Walker Books US, and most of all, to those who read and enjoyed the story of Sammie, Bram, and their space in the great outdoors. Love to you all.
For Shepherd.com, I picked out and reviewed my five best books to make kids feel like mighty eco-warriors.
In Pathways Home for the Nerdy Book Club, I wrote about the impact of Bird Life, a British birdwatching magazine for kids, on my childhood and my dreams. It changed my life and permanently cemented my connection to nature.
TeachingBooks.net, a resource for educators, did an audio interview with me about nature, childhood, combining literacy & science for young people, and how those elements combine in The Monarchs of Winghaven. My favorite quote from the interview:
“I think this book is about finding your courage in many respects. It’s about finding your courage to be your individual self and to make the choices that feel right for you, it’s about the courage to let other people into that world and not to block them out through fear or shyness, and it’s about the courage to become an activist in the world and to protect the things you love. So, I hope that kids will read this book and feel those many layers of courage for themselves.”
I loved being interviewed for The Nature Book Guide (pdf): an “all-volunteer community of readers, writers, naturalists, scientists, and stewards of the earth’s resources. The Nature Book Guide is a project to share books about nature, to be a source of inspiration and wonder, to encourage reading, appreciation, and action—and investment in our world’s future.” What a marvelous mandate.
Happy New Year to all, and may it be a productive and happy one.