Betty Birney’s Blog

Humphrey and Og want me to offer their best wishes for a happy and hoppy 2009! (Og is a hoppy frog after all.) They’re both excited about the new book coming out in February!  Especially because it involves sailboats, pirates and library cards!

Above is the U.S. cover, which is called ADVENTURE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY. In the U.K., it will be called MORE ADVENTURES ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY. It has a great cover, too, which I’ll try to get up here soon. (To clear up any confusion, this is a greatly expanded version of last year’s World Book Day book, with some terrific additions including a surprise ending you won’t want to miss. I promise.)

For Humphrey fans in the U.S. and the U.K., there is more Humphrey to come, so I’d better get back to my writing!

It was announced this weekend that SURPRISES ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY is on the Bluebonnet Award list for 2010! THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY has won nine children’s choice awards and FRIENDSHIP ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY is on several lists now but it’s lovely that the fourth book in the series is getting this attention! Texas is a big state and the readers there have big appetites so this is quite an honor.

I’ll be heading for Calgary on Tuesday for the Kaleidoscope Conference later in the week and to visit some schools. I can’t wait, despite the email I got this morning saying it might snow on Wednesday. Snow? What’s snow?

Back when I got the invitation to Kaleidoscope, it never dawned on me that I’d be leaving on election day. That seems like a long time ago. I already voted by absentee ballot so I don’t have to think about long lines. But even though I can watch the returns in Canada, it will be different, I’m sure. And it will be especially hard NOT to be watching with my husband. (Although I usually get frustrated and go to bed while he stays up.)

Shiver me timbers! It’s September 19, International Talk Like a Pirate Day!  I hope ye be celebratin’ in style. Even a landubber like ye can talk like a pirate. It just takes practice. Just ask our matey, Humphrey, whose next book of adventures takes place on the high seas. (Well, Potter’s Pond.) It’s a fur-raising tale which will keep ye guessin’: will Humphrey win a treasure chest of gold … or end up in Davey Jones’ locker? (That be the bottom o’ the sea … er, Potter’s Pond.)

Ye’ll have to wait ’til February to find out if ye dwell in the U.S.

Readers in the U.K. got a preview this March for World Book Day. But they’ll learn the rest o’ the story later next year.

Here be a peek at the covers.

Top: UK World Book cover 2008, below, US cover 2009

In further celebration of this illustrious day, here be a swashbuckling riddle:

Q.: Why does it take pirates a LONG-LONG-LONG time to learn the alphabet?

A:  Because they spend years at C!

For another pirate riddle, check out Humphrey’s notebook on the Humphreyville section of my website. Our favorite furry friend blogs there.

And remember, behave yourselves, mateys, or ye be walkin’ the plank!

 Find Lisa, Lisa’s Peepy, Sally Nemeth, me (front row); Michael Reisman, Dan Santat, Mark London Williams, Sue Casey (back and center). Love the lighting!

Lisa Yee threw huge a LAYAS (Los Angeles Young Adult writers) get-together on Wednesday and it was what you’d expect when you get together a big bunch of people who spend a great deal of time alone staring at a computer: wild and crazy fun. (But as you can see, we did end up in front of the computer.) FYI, when writers get together they talk, laugh, talk, eat, get silly, talk … well, you get the idea. Two out-of-town YA writers, Julia DeVillers and Sarah Darer Littman, happened to be in town at the same time, which made it a great excuse for a party … thanks to Lisa’s generous hospitality.

And as an addendum to the last post, Greg Proops is not only the voice of Humphrey; he’s the voice of Bob the Builder in the U.S. And Bob doesn’t sound like Humphrey at all. in fact, he’s unsqueakably different.

   Bob                        Greg                           Humphrey

This morning, I got nice news from Humphrey’s UK publisher, Faber & Faber. The World According to Humphrey audiobook made the prestigious Sunday London Times pick of the best audiobooks for summer! Here’s a blurb:

Parents hoping to beguile children with fiction during long car journeys deserve stories they can enjoy, too. Kids of all ages should relish the American comedian Greg Proops reading The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney. Proops gives Humphrey, the class hamster, a feisty and rather acerbic nasal whine in which he delivers sharp, funny observations on the education system and family life - and manages to get in plenty of poo jokes.

Sorry the picture I just took (above)  is so fuzzy but I tried a lot and that was the best I could do. Besides, the box is cracked. But you can see that Richard and Judy circle on the box. You never heard of Richard and Judy? Then you don’t live in the UK. They host the equivalent of the Oprah show of England and have a very popular book club. They started a children’s book club in October and Humphrey won the first round ever> The books were prominently displayed in bookstores, there was a primetime special, and forever that little logo will be on the book and audiobook. I did manage to catch the show in March when I was there and it’s a nice, relaxed talk show. In this country when I talk to Brits and mention Richard and Judy, I love the reaction. The jaw drops, the eyes widen and the person always says, “Richard and Judy are huge!” This has happened twice in the last three weeks. Actually, R&J are normal sized people - not huge at all. But they are popular.

Now, about Greg Proops. When I first heard Faber was doing audiobooks, I thought how funny it would be to hear Humphrey with an English accent. So they surprised me and used an American. Though we do make numerous manuscript changes to reflect the differences in their English and our English, everyone says Humphrey is perceived as an American. And kids there are used to American film and TV, so the accent doesn’t sound that strange.

  The voice of Humphrey at work …. when you’re recording two three-hour audiobooks, you have to protect your throat.

I was a fan of Greg Proops when he was a regular on the original improv show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, which preceded the American version. We watched it on BBC America. He’s really popular in the UK because of that show. So I was happy to learn he would be the voice of Humphrey. When I got a copy of the first disk in March, I was nervous. I’m pretty sensitive to hearing someone else read my books. I think I might be hyper-critical because for years, I directed voice-over talent for Disneyland and then the Disney Studios - radio commercials and the announcer tracks for TV commercials and theatrical trailers. I spent about half my life  in recording studios, working with such great announcers as Gene Moss, Danny Dark (both gone now, sad to say), Gary Owens of Laugh-In fame - who is still going strong- and Howard Morris, whom I enjoyed watching on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows as a very young child.

My first reaction was - oh wow, Humphrey is a man! But I listened for a minute to the “feisty and acerbic nasal whine” Greg Proops chose, and I was suddenly thinking, “Hey, this book is pretty good. It’s better than I remember!” I guess that’s about the highest praise I can give an audiobook reader. He hooked me.  And I’m glad he didn’t do a cute little hamster voice, which would have gotten on my nerves.

Unfortunately, I don’t think you can buy these audiobooks in the U.S. I guess you can go on Amazon.uk However, audible.com has a Humphrey book - I’ve just not heard it so no comment.

The Faber audiobook of Friendship According to Humphrey (also with Greg Proops) comes out in October. That’s when Surprises According to Humphrey (the book) will be released in the UK as well.

If you haven’t played the Nut-Ding game or posted a picture of your pet, you’ve got to check out the thoroughly wonderful Humphrey UK site - www.funwithhumphrey.com. The game is fun and not just for kids.

It wasn’t a tour, exactly, but it was a mystery - a big question mark that’s been on my calendar for months. And once the mystery was solved, it turned out to be a magical trip after all.

Last year, the Penguin marketing team came up with the idea of a Humphrey Drawing Contest. Last week, after over a thousand entries were looked at, a smaller group (about 15) were sent to me and after a lot of long, hard thought, we had a winner.

Since the grand prize was having me come to the winner’s school to speak (as well as free books for the entire class and a gift certificate), I didn’t want to know where each entry was from. After a rather strenuous travel year (away from home 8 weeks in various bits and pieces), I probably would have selected Los Angeles! So where was I going? Nebraska? North Carolina? Alabama? All were in the finalists.  But it was a little north of Alabama because the winner was (fanfare here):

Richard Roberts, Cliffwood Elementary School, Cliffwood, New Jersey!

(I ended up having to travel coast-to-coast after all. But I didn’t really mind)

 I have to say, Richard’s teacher, Susan Kyvelos, librarian, Susan Rardin (yes, there were lots of Susans there), the principal  (whose name has escaped me even though she is the Most Important Person at Cliffwood Elementary) and the whole staff at Cliffwood pulled out all the stops! The library was turned into Humphreyville with all the streets listed in TROUBLE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY. There are so many talented artists at Cliffwood - I loved all the big drawings of the characters from the books.  Great food, the newspaper there to take photos, and Richard’s enthusiastic parents and grandmothers were on hand as well.

So, how did we determine the winner? It was tough, I have to tell you. Once the finalists were chosen, I looked and looked and looked and my eyes kept going back to Richard’s. While many entries illustrated the scene where Humphrey hits Clem with the rubber band - and they were all very cute - his drawing showed an exact moment in the book and it was action packed. The rubber band has just that second hit Clem’s nose. Read the chapter and you’ll see Richard captured it all with verve and imagination. When I talked to him about it, Richard said that he had done a couple of drawings before it but wasn’t quite satisfied. That’s so much like writing, when I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite some more. And it’s always worth it.

 I like the little cartoon bubbles. Fanny is saying “Blub,” Humphrey is saying “Take this, Beast” and Clem says “Ouch!” There’s the rubber band mid-air, too!

Still it was a tough decision! Especially since Sasha Quattlebaum from Omaha, NE had a wonderfully imaginative take on Aldo and the hallways of Longfellow School at night. And Mary Beth Judge from Waxhaw, NC also captured a colorful scene between Aldo and Humphrey. They both received First Prize Awards.  Honorable Mentions went to Glen Nolte of Anniston, AL, a truly talented artist, and Lexi Rose Reynolds, also of Waxhaw - I loved Clem’s big nose as seen through Humphrey’s eyes. There were two other Waxhaw students in the finalists. Rea View Elementary is a very special place.

I’ll try to get those up on my photo gallery soon. They deserve to be looked at.

By the way, Richard’s 9th birthday was the day before I came to his school but I didn’t find that out until later. So Happy Birthday, Richard!

With Jill Dorfman at Richboro Elementary

 Bucks County is obviously a great place for writers, since Pearl Buck (Nobel Prize winner), James Michener (Pulitzer Prize winner)  and Oscar Hammerstein II (Oscar winner - a lyricist but no less a writer - and a genius) all resided here (not all at the same time). Margaret Mead, Stephen Sondheim, Moss Hart, S.J. Perelman, the Berenstains of Bear fame, Bob Dylan and Dorothy Parker also lived there at one time or another - no slouches at writing, any of them!

It’s a beautiful part of the country. I especially love the old stone houses. But I didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing because my assignment was to visit schools! After I left Mill Creek and Warrinton (previous post) I moved to Newtown, which is a very old town, and the Brick Hotel.  My first day was spent at Goodnoe Elementary with librarian Laura Follmer and assistant Kathy Labold. A more enthusiastic group of Humphrey fans I have never encountered. (Okay, the sentence is backwards. Poetic license.)

That evening, I had dinner with Jill Dorfman and her family. Jill arranged the whole visit. She and her husband, Dennis, son Jeremy and daughter Rachel took me to an Italian restaurant where I indulged in my passion for mussels. Jeremy is a recent NYU film school grad and Rachel is in high school. I thank them for a great welcome.

I spent the next day at Richboro Elementary, Jill’s school, where I was the recipient of even greater hospitality -a major morning feast including a cake with my name on it - followed by presentations to Humphrey and Sassafras fans.

That night, I was taken to dinner by David and his parents, Eric and Peggy, at the Temperance House, one of those very old taverns with a fireplace so big,  a family of 4-6  could stand in it! David was the very astute Mill Creek student who, when he realized I was coming to Bucks County, alerted his school. Then I was contacted by first grade teacher, Cynthia Ventresca, who arranged for my visit there. Eric, the dad, grew up in my hometown of St. Louis so we did a little strolling down memory lane. He went to Kirkwood High. My sister, Janet, and her husband live in Kirkwood and  Steve is a Kirkwood grad as well.

 Sharon Blumenthal, me, Arlene Williams

Up and early the next morning I headed to Holland Elementary where Arlene Williams and assistant Sharon Blumenthal gave me another warm welcome.  It was a BUSY-BUSY-BUSY day, but Arlene rewarded me with authentic PA pretzels - I’ve never had pretzels that good, even though my husband is from PA - and then dinner with a group of  teachers, planned by Arlene so I could have an authentic Philly Cheese Steak sandwich. (Although this is quite controversial - some feel “authentic” means Cheese Whiz - thankfully, this nice Italian restaurant used Provolone.) It was great - and different than I expected.

Tired but happy, I left the restaurant and receive a beautiful reward for two weeks away from home: a double rainbow! I followed it all the way back to my hotel and if I just could have gotten into those woods, I know I would have found my pot of gold!  But wait - are we sure that wonderful lyricist’s name wasn’t Oscar Hamsterstein?

Two weeks. Eight flights.  Three states. Four hotels. 1500 books signed. 15 schools.

And now I’m home. It was a great trip with few hitches (airline related-only). I’m home for a week and a half, then off for the final trip of the year - to fulfill the Humphrey Drawing Contest. (I have to visit the school of the winner - more about that soon.)

The photo above is from the Cedar Rapids leg of the trip - it was taken by librarian Sally Reck at Indian Creek Elementary in Marion, IA.  I give it three BOINGS!!!

   Sally and Wynelle Lindsley of Bowman Woods arranged this wonderful visit for me. Here I am with Jan Dickinson and Wynelle at their library.
 The kids there performed a GREAT-GREAT-GREAT poem for me and the answer to their question is “Yes, there will be another Humphrey book.”

To that end, ADVENTURE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY is being typeset for next spring and I’m starting the first “shorter” Humphrey book - a short chapter book that will be illustrated. I may have some time off from travel but never time off from Humphrey!

 I’ll catch up with the Bucks County part of the trip in a few days. Let’s just say it ended with a double rainbow!

 Doylestown, PA May 18, 2008

Okay, I kind of made a mistake and inadvertently booked back-to-back trips this spring. So on Mother’s Day, I flew to Indianapolis and then drove to Carmel, IN - a charming area just outside Indianapolis. I stayed at a great B&B (Old Towne Bed and Breakfast) where I was graciously hosted by Lorraine and Doug who went the extra mile to make sure I had what I needed. I spoke at Smoky Row Elementary and Forest Dale Elementary. My thanks to hosting media specialists Mrs. Marley (Smoky Row) and Mrs. Duffy (Forest Dale). I had a GREAT-GREAT-GREAT time and offer my heartfelt thanks to the Ahearns for a lovely dinner and great conversation.

 Then up at the crack of dawn (always at the crack of dawn) for the trip to Cedar Rapids. I changed planes in St. Louis, my home town. It was to supposed be a close connection but a lightning storm shut down the airport so we were delayed. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to stay over and see my relatives.

Wynelle Lindsley of Bowman Woods Elementary in Cedar Rapids picked me up and whisked to her school to sign lots and lots and lots of books. Then it was off to dinner at Sally Reck’s house (Indian Creek Elementary) for another great homecooked meal where I got to meet some of the other media specialists and their entertaining husbands.

Then it was a stimulating round of school visits to Novak, Linn Grove, Indian Creek, Oak Ridge, Westfield, Wilkins and Bowman Woods where I met GREAT-GREAT-GREAT students who were very enthusiastic about Humphrey!!

Thanks so much to the extremely gracious media specialists: Cynde, Melissa, Sally, Sue, Deb, Tiffany and Wynelle for great lunches and dinners (we won’t talk about the many hours of signing - I had a very nice room to do it in).

Cedar Rapids/Marion (Marion is where these schools were located except Bowman Woods) is a truly beautiful area, reminding me of my midwestern childhood. And the people, as I always find in the midwest, are so friendly. Kind of like Humphrey!

Now I’m in Bucks County, PA for the weekend. I’ll fill you in on that schedule later … but I had a lovely morning exploring Doylestown - what a charming town - quintessentially American, complete with streets lined with American flags. I drove on to New Hope which is great but it poured rain and I hurried back to the room for emailing, blogging and basically catching up!

And I’ll catch up with the rest of my trip later!

 I did have a wonderful birthday on Saturday. My biggest present: being home for the first time in a while! And a very nice  stack of presents from my husband and other relatives. But no time to relax because it was off to UCLA for the annual LA Times Festival of Books. Unbelievably, 70,000 people plus come each day- all in celebration of books. Originally, I wasn’t too happy about my timeslot right at the Festival opening. But it was unbelievably hot and I ended up being very grateful I wasn’t signing at 2:00. There was already quite a crowd at 10. I got to sign with fellow LAYA, Michael Reisman, who just had his first book published to great success - starred reviews, movie deal - all well deserved! The book is Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper and there will be more. LAYA Paula Yoo (her almost brand new book is Good Enough) also stopped by - I didn’t get her picture, darn.

We browsed a bit, then returned home for a lovely, long call from son Walshe and his girlfriend, Ania, then off to Beverly Hills for dinner with Becca, Gary and darling granddaughter, Remy. Becca and Gary took us to a favorite restaurant, Kate Mantilini’s. You can see that Remy was a lot more interested in helping me blow out that candle than with photography. When we returned home, I saw that Desi had a little celebration of her own. Desi is a 12 year old puppy - and I do mean puppy. She doesn’t play with her toys a lot but that night, she pulled her entire toy basket out of the corner of the den and scattered toys everywhere. I wish I’d had a hidden camera filming that! Whoopee!

So another year has come and gone and it was a very, very good year, for which I’m grateful.