|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Betty Writes
It’s time for the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books – the largest book festival in the U.S.
This year, the venue has changed from UCLA to USC. so it will be a new adventure!
I’ll be signing twice on Saturday, April 30 in the children’s section:
11 AM-12 PM - CM School Supply Booth
1- 2 PM – Penguin Booth #577
For complete info about this free event (you must pay for parking), go to:
http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/
Hope to see you there!
Humphrey has his very own whoopee cushion!
Today is the release of HUMPHREY’S HA-HA-HA JOKE BOOK, available in the UK only from Faber & Faber. No, I didn’t personally gather 450 jokes, but Amanda Li, who also put together the recent activity book and the upcoming pet care guide, did. We went back and forth a lot – there were a few I didn’t get (just dense, I think) and a few that were specific to the UK (took some out, left some in). The really fun part is that they also let Humphrey fans submit jokes.
Here’s one from Tansy:
What happened when the two balls of string had a race?
It ended in a tie!
And here’s a hamster joke for you:
When do hamsters need oiling?
When they squeak!
I probably never chuckled so much when I proofed it. I also asked my husband to proofread and every time I passed by, he was laughing. I’m unsqueakably grateful to Amanda Li and wonder what fun we’ll be up to next!
SUMMER ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY in paperback, that is. It launched today.
For years, children were asking me what would happen to Humphrey during summer vacation. I finally told the story. Most of it takes place at Camp Happy Hollow and I will be at Happy Hollow School in West Lafayette, Indiana this coming Tuesday.
I’m glad the Humphrey books come out in hardcover in the U.S. for the first year, but I’m also always glad when they release in paperback because so many more kids can read them.
Fun fact: in the U.K., the book is called Holidays According to Humphrey, since they have a shorter summer break and they refer to all vacations as holidays whereas in the U.S. the holidays usually refer to the winter holidays. Another great cover. Love those sunglasses!
So have a happy “summer” – we’re having some summer heat in L.A. today!
Continuing our trip to the real Pooh Corner, my friend Min and I started out at the Pooh Corner Shop in Hartfield – the door is a little on the low side. After dropping a few pounds and pence at the shop, we headed out for the Ashdown Forest. In the books, it’s referred to as The Hundred Acre Wood. But it’s actually locally known as the Five Hundred Acre Wood.
It wasn’t difficult to see that we’d come to the right spot. 
It’s about a mile and a third walk through the forest to the Poohsticks Bridge. To be honest, the bridge has been redone but it’s the same spot where Pooh and his friends, played the game of Poohsticks. Like many children’s games, it began as an accidental observation as Pooh threw a fir-cone over the bridge. (He later switched to sticks, which were easier to mark.)
That’s funny,” said Pooh. “I dropped it on the other side and it came out on this side! I wonder if it would do it again?” House at Pooh Corner
One of the delights of the day was the fact that Min and I were the only people around – anywhere! It was just as it might have been when A.A. Milne took his son, Christopher Robin, for a walk. Min and I were anxious to play Poohsticks but the sign said you couldn’t take twigs off the trees and had to bring your own sticks. Luckily, some kind soul had left a whole pile of sticks on the ground, all of a uniform size and shaved at the ends. (Or was that kind soul a mild-mannered bear?)
“Then he dropped two in at once, and leant over the bridge to see which of them would come out first; and one of them did ….” House at Pooh Corner
Min ready to throw her first Poohstick.
I always thought it was such a silly little game. Each player throws a stick over the bridge on one side. Then players rush to the other side and watch as the sticks emerge from under the bridge and try to determine which stick wins. Well, it turns out not to be so silly at all. There’s a nice current there and we were as excited as any children as we hurried from one side to the next to watch the sticks float out from under the bridge. Only downside: Min always seemed to win! I think she’d been studying the currents.
“I expect my stick’s stuck,” said Roo. “Rabbit, my stick’s stuck. Is your stick stuck, Piglet?” House at Pooh Corner.
There’s a big pile of stuck sticks. But our sticks always managed to float right past the clump of stuck sticks and on down the stream.
All good things must come to an end and Min and I headed back to the car park. We hadn’t noticed that the walk to the bridge was all downhill. We managed to huff and puff our way uphill back to the car, still giggling over our woodland adventure.
For more about the Ashdown Forest:
http://www.ashdownforest.org/ Click on Panorama of the Forest for a very good view of the area
There are way more Humphrey books in the UK than in the US .
My brief brush with royalty was over and on Friday, Laura and I went to Corpus Christi Primary School in Herne Hill (in the Brixton/Lambeth area of London). In a bright, sunny new room, I met quite a delightful cast of storybook characters! Friendly teachers and students at Corpus Christi and excellent questions, too.
After my presentation and signing, we headed back to Faber and I was off to lunch with the Faber children’s marketing team (minus one, who was off). After a jolly Italian lunch, I went off to huddle for an hour or so with my UK editor, Julia Heydon-Wells. Julia is about to go on maternity leave but we still had plenty of Humphrey planning to do. I’ll always be grateful to Julia for picking up Humphrey for the UK, where the books are so popular, and so glad I’m with Faber!
Rebecca, Susan, Laura, me, Julia, Kat at Faber on our way to lunch. We missed you, Lucie!
And that was the London leg of my trip. On Saturday, I took the train from Victoria Station to Surrey to visit my friends, Min, Jonny and Suzy and her parents, Wendy and Roger – they have adjacent properties with a guest house in the former stables so it was to and fro through the bushes from one place to another for a few very happy days.
When I arrived, there had been several emergencies. One at Min’s and one at Wendy and Roger’s, where Henry,the dog, had become ill with something like a stroke. There are three dogs there: Henry, Boston and Lizzie. Luckily, Henry’s medication was working and the prognosis was good, though he was a bit wobbly and tended to veer to one side. He was still chipper and game to take a walk. And as always, there were friends and good eats, lots of laughs and walks and side trips. It all began in a very puzzling way — as the family gathered around to put together a jigsaw puzzle I’d had made of the three dogs from a photo I took on my previous visit in 2009. Next stop: a Pooh-tastic adventure with Min!
Min, Suzy, Jonny, Wendy and Roger
Facebook
Twitter