And then there were three ... books by me! It is with supreme delight that I announce Eerdmans Books for Young Readers will be publishing my picture book, Mama Earth's New Year. Yay!

I'm ridiculously thrilled in part because we have a ginormous collection of Eerdmans picture books, and every single one is unquestionably beautiful. The quality of this publisher's books for children is out of this world spectacular. I'm also thrilled because some of my favorite authors (Gary Schmidt!) have also published with Eerdmans. I'm awed and more than a little humbled to be joining their list of amazing authors.

What's the story that won them over? Mama Earth's New Year is a poetic personification of Mother Earth and a child's interaction with her. The story begins with the lines, 

Mama Earth rustles her autumn wings
to cool her hot, tired face.
She sighs, and the first September frost
crackles over bowing stalks of corn.

And the story continues through each month, children floating paper boats, dressing pines in cranberry garland, until autumn comes again. I rather love it, and I'm so so glad my editor at Eerdmans does too. 

Only hints about illustrators at this point, but that's part of the wonderful surprise of writing picture books. I believe were aiming for a spring, 2019 release, but all of that is subject to change. At the moment I'm still glowing. Hooray!