Betty Birney’s Blog

 Sometimes I feel like a little hamster spinning on my wheel, especially when I’m working on three Humphrey books at the same time. Which means I have been: writing a new Humphrey book while also:

- finishing the FINAL-FINAL-FINAL copy editing on Adventure According to Humphrey (coming out in hardcover in the US in February)

- writing the Reader’s Guide and activities for According to Humphrey (coming out in paperback in the US in January)

- and making the LAST-LAST-LAST little tweaks on Surprises According to Humphrey UK (coming to the UK this October)

- plus October is the month when the UK audio version of Friendship According to Humphrey, read by Greg Proops (see previous blogs) is released.

I can now reveal the UK Surprises cover (the purple one on top) and you can compare it to the US cover. I love them both! Humphrey’s fear of aliens and his encounter with the cat are both equally important in the book. But because the aliens may not be real, the UK designer made it a drawing - very clever.

If I could change one thing about myself, I would choose to be able to draw. My dad was a talented amateur artist (and an all-round creative person), my stepdaughters Anna and Becca are both successful professional artists/designers and my late brother-in-law Leon deLeeuw was likewise a very fine artist and art professor. Maybe we just didn’t need another artist in the family! I also tend to have friends who are artists. Mitch, Anne, Cynthia, Davis, to name a few.

Maybe it’s time for Humphrey to express his inner artist!

 For me, the very best thing about writing is on those days when I actually forget I’m writing. By that I mean, I’m so involved with the story that I’m in the action and lose the awareness that I’m outside of the story writing it. It’s a wonderful feeling, hard to describe, but exhilarating. My husband would never walk into the office without a little knock on the door -  first because he’s polite, but second, he doesn’t like to startle me. It’s like waking someone up from a dream. The knock helps. Otherwise I sort of bounce up out of my chair and go “oh!” and he knows that “oh” means I was somewhere far, far away.

But most of writing isn’t like that. It’s about details. I’ve been holed up trying to finish the first draft of a new Humphrey book. This will be a shorter chapter book with illustrations. It’s the same as the other Humphrey books but shorter - which made it a very different writing experience. Blood, sweat and tears were involved. (I finished and my editor’s reading it this weekend.)

I spent at least four days doing nothing but trying to figure out how to get Humphrey into a certain situation at a certain time safely and logically. This is always a difficulty with Humphrey because he’s a very small creature! I finally talked it over with my husband. I thought we came up with the solution, but when I sat down to write, it didn’t work.  We talked again and I got it and wrote it immediately.

I also enlisted Desi the dog for a little research - seen above. Yes, that’s a baseball cap she’s wearing. No, she’s not happy about it, which is why my husband is keeping her in place. But she didn’t argue about it either. I guess she knows research is important, too.

Even after a book is written there are more details to look after. Witness today. I get up really early, so I was at my desk at 6 am (not showered and dressed yet, but at my desk). An hour later, I got pages from my editor, Susan, about the fourth go-round of copy-editing of the next book, Adventure According to Humphrey. The bound galleys are already published but there were four or five more questions to straighten out. The Humphrey books seem to require more eagle eyes proofing them because of the way the names are written and hyphenated. Luckily, a diligent copy editor caught a few more things. I’m always soooo happy when this happens. I hate mistakes in books and I’m grateful to all those who help find and correct them.

Immediately after we straightened that out, I heard from Lucie, my copy editor at Faber, my UK publishers. Surprises According to Humphrey is coming out there  in October and there were still a few lingering issues. Actually, she was mostly answering my questions from the last round of copy editing - such as do kids in the UK understand our A,B,C system of grading and do they know the song Yankee Doodle Dandy? In both cases, they do.

Details are important. So if you think writing is just sitting in an ivory tower channeling the muse … remember Desi in her baseball cap. And yes, it is pertinent.

 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’s been hotter than hot here in Southern California, with the temperature edging up close to 100 every day. Before air conditioning, before inflatable wading pools were invented, we had other ways of cooling off. Here I am in the watering can at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. (I am much more modest now.) They lived on Humphrey Street in south St. Louis. That’s right. Humphrey, as in hamster.

Still, the heat hasn’t kept me inside. Yesterday morning, Frank and I went to the home of Lisa Yee (http://lisayee.com) author of Millicent Min, Girl Genius and others including her new American Girl book) for the South Pasadena Festival of Balloons parade. Lisa and husband Scott have a beautiful 100 year-old Craftsman house on the parade route with a large front yard. The food and company was so terrific (and it was so, um, warm) we watched from the shaded front porch and I didn’t take any pictures. Dumb. But I had great chats with fellow LAYAs (Los Angeles Young Adult writers) Sally Nemeth (The Heights, the Depths and Everything in Between), Michael Reisman (Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper) and Amy Goldman Koss (The Girls). Amy and I reminisced about our glory days as judges (with Lisa) in this same parade two years ago. And talked extensively also with illustrator extraordinaire, Dan Santat, and family.

Later, granddaughter Remy came over for a cookout (okay she brought her mom and dad, too). We read books and sang at the table (even though Amy Vanderbilt says that’s not polite) and had a rollicking good time. The kids had thought they could see the Studio City fireworks display at CBS Studios from our backyard. Theoretically we should be able to, but the trees are just too tall. I thought of the perfect spot to see them, so Frank drove up with them while I stayed home with Desi (dog) and listened to the fireworks. I couldn’t see a thing but I could hear them quite well! And then I watched Yankee Doodle Dandy - I love corny older films. Unabashedly.

 Tomorrow, Frank and I are going to the Music Center downtown to see A Chorus Line, which I originally saw on Broadway. At first we hadn’t opted for tickets but then I thought even though we’ve seen it before, hearing great music and seeing great dancing is not a bad way to while away a few hours. I hope it is still a singular sensation.

  READ is the current campaign for the American Library Association. But before I talk about my close encounter with a massive number of librarians, I have a question for you. 

Did you ever see the musical, Bells Are Ringing? It was a Broadway play and then a movie starring Judy Holliday (who left us far too early). There’s a number in it called “Drop That Name” and while many of the names in the song might be obscure to younger viewers, it’s extremely clever. I love blogs but I have to admit, a lot of blogging consists of dropping names and when I do it, I feel guilty.  Nevertheless, be forewarned: names will be dropped here, but you’d be amazed at what I’m leaving out! And I didn’t take pictures of myself with people because I just loved talking to them and sometimes the camera gets in the way. But the names I’m dropping are all wonderful people and many writers whose work you may or should know.

I went the ALA conference on Saturday and Sunday - my first! I really haven’t been in the book biz that long, not in comparison to my years in advertising and television. The ALA is the American Library Association and this year their huge, gala conference was in my old stomping grounds of Anaheim (I did used to work at Disneyland).

And WOW, it’s an awesome experience, roaming aisle after aisle of exhibits - not just publishers, but also people who make videos and die-cutting machines and library shelves, library benches, desks, and statues, magazines for libraries, magazines about libraries - it goes on and on! On Saturday, I just went to get my badge, get the lay of the land and also support my LAYA friends. That stands for Los Angeles Young Adult writers, a rather loose (in every way) group of local writers. Yes, folks, I went to Layapalooza!

Checking in went well because standing in back of me in line to check in were Alexis O’Neill and Joan Bransfield Graham, two other SoCal writers. (SoCal is Southern California - don’t you love the acronyms so far?) Alexis writes delectable picture books and Joan writes music-to-the-ear poetry books for young children. We had a few quibbles with the powers that be with bags and maps, etc. but Joan straightened it all out. Then, I was off to roam.

I visited the Penguin exhibit (they were hosting me for my signing on Sunday). And I dropped by the Simon and Schuster booth where I learned, to my delight, that my Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, was winging her way to Anaheim as we spoke. I ran into librarian Tracie Carignan - I had been at her library in Riverside. CA earlier in the year where she hosted me at her library and several Jurupa Unified Schools. She just sent me a GREAT poster of me with the four Seven Wonders essay contest winners which I now have framed on my wall. (See above) By chance, they were all handsome boys, and the five of us had a fabulous dinner together.

Eventually, I made it to the Layapalooza - a game show event that I didn’t participate in because I wasn’t around for the many planning and rehearsal sessions. But I volunteered myself as official photographer. I’m so glad I did - it was definitely entertaining, and the participants in the game show ended up being the likes of authors Neal Shusterman and Nancy Werlin and editor Arthur A. Levine, who has his own imprint at Scholastic and is now known as the editor who brought Harry Potter to America.

  LAYAS Amy Goldman Koss and Lisa Yee greet their adoring ALA fans!

And I got to see Caitlyn, which is always a delight.

I also cruised by to chat with Newbery winner, Susan Patron (The Higher Power of Lucky). We both had the good fortune to have Matt Phelan illustrate our books. In fact, The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs was Matt’s first book but his career took off immediately with good reason.

On Sunday, I arrived for my morning signing, which went very well. It’s GREAT-GREAT-GREAT to meet Humphrey’s varied fans. I also got to spend some quality time with Nancy Paulsen, publisher and president of Putnam’s Children’s Books.  Susan Kochan, Humphrey’s editor, wasn’t able to be there, but luckily, I was just with her in New Jersey for the awarding of the prize for the Humphrey Drawing Contest and it was a genuine pleasure to see Nancy again. Especially since she graduated from B.C. (Boston College) as did my son.

I also got to chat with the Penguin Young Reader’s Marketing Team, many of whom I met (and wined and dined with) at the Texas Library Association conference in April. And I met people from Penguin I’ve never met but have always wanted to. Definitely invigorating.

 I also ran into another of my VFWs (Very Favorite Writers) - Hope Anita Smith - a multi-talented writer and artist. Check out her website at http://hopeanitasmith.com. Twice. Okay three times we ran into each other.  Once she was with YA writer Marlene Perez, whom I’d had some chat group contact in the past. Loved our in-person chat much more!

So now, I have new writing energy … and boy do I need it!

It is 11:00 and almost 100 degrees. The temperature on our patio was 104 yesterday. Thank goodness that a week ago, the weather was absolutely perfect for celebrating the grand occasion of our granddaughter’s 3rd birthday! I’m not sure how many adults and kids there were - maybe 40? 50?

Remy’s mom and dad supplied the entertainment including a long, low table with little chairs and tons of materials for crafts which was very popular. And they hired a “bubble lady” who did all kinds of wonderful things with wading pools and bubbles. There was some real science thrown in, and bubbles of all shapes and sizes. The high point (for the adults) was seeing the kids put inside giant bubbles. Not that many opted to try it but I’m glad Remy did. She’s the girl in the bubble, above. From the kids’ point of view, I think the most popular event was getting to make their own big bubbles from a series of wading pools.

It was a great tryout for the new door to my office. (I have to get a picture to replace the one on the home page.) The little house is a real attraction for three year-olds. One boy called it “The library,” which it looks like with its book-lined walls.  It took awhile to wash off the chocolate and strawberry handprints on the door, way down low but I didn’t mind.

 Today I’m staying in my air-conditioned office and writing. Desi the dog is in here, too. I’m trying to limit her time outside, though she prefers to be outside.

And if it gets any hotter, I might just crawl into a great big bubble of my own!

School is over for the summer … at least for me! My last school visit was a week ago at the Third Street School in Los Angeles. On my way home, I recalled the little saying we chanted on the last day of school:

School’s out, school’s out,

Teacher let the mules out!

No more classes, no more books,

No more teacher’s dirty looks!!!

The end of school always included a district wide school parade, followed by a day at the wonderful old Forest Park Highlands amusement park. The memories are flooding in so I’ll have to do a separate post on the Highlands. The district took it over for the day. You could buy food there or bring picnics. And if your family wasn’t going, bus transportation was supplied. It was a rip-roaring close to the school year. The Highlands are long gone and so is Reavis School.

I loved school but I loved summer, too. More time for reading, bike-riding, swimming, jumping rope, playing hopscotch, playing board and card games and building imaginary worlds.  (I had a lot of those.) But I was always glad to go back to school in the fall because I missed my friends and I did like school.

 Even though I have plenty of writing to do this summer, I hope to get more reading done and enjoy working in my new kitchen.

Carole Koneff, the librarian at Third Street Elementary, wrote an epic poem that’s a lot better than the one about the mules. What a lovely introduction!

The Seven Wonders of the World inspired a lovely book

And lots of us decided to take a closer look

About a boy named Eben who went upon a quest

To find some local wonders and try to pass a test.

His dad threw down the gauntlet and in the space of just a week,

He had to decide the things that he would seek.

He had to scour the neighborhood and overcome some fears,

And on the way must endure the teasing of his peers.

And as he delved a little further and stuck to the task,

The wonders started happening, and then came thick and fast.

A doll that saved a person, a bookcase in the rain

A saw that scared the locusts, a table helping pain

A ship inside a bottle, a blind woman’s magic loom

A perfect miniature of the town that washed away the gloom

This book of seven wonders made us smile and want to cheer

And we are very happy that Betty Birney’s here

To talk to us of Eben and delightful Humphrey, too

And now I am just thrilled to introduce her to you!

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!

  Our recent house repairs and renovations have turned up plenty of wildlife. Some unwelcome furry critters, some nasty old termites and last Thursday, we looked outside my office window and saw this on our back wall.

This is the second bee swarm we’ve had. At our last house about 40,000 bees (estimated) swarmed our barbecue grill and built a substantial hive in a few hours. I can’t bear the thought of killing such useful insects (unlike termites) so we found a beekeeper to come and remove them. I recently had a friend tell me she couldn’t find anyone to take away live bees but we looked in the yellow pages and found someone who came out in an hour.  Bees have alarmingly disappeared recently, endangering such crops as almonds, so I was relieved to recycle them to a bee farm.

We recently had our electrical panel redone and apparently they left a few small holes. The queen got in and the work began. The beekeeper told us to stay inside (didn’t have to ask me twice) and we watched as he located the queen and put her in a box. The vast majority of bees follow because without their queen, they’re nothing! But many remained and so he released some smoke, which helped encourage some others to move on.

However, a group remained. We were told that they were the bees out collecting nectar who returned to the spot and wondered what the heck happened to their queen. We called and were told that they should be gone by Saturday - that they’d find a new queen - but to call if they weren’t. Actually this is Tuesday and there are no 10 bees remaining, but we haven’t called because they aren’t really bothering anything. 

We do have a busy group of bees working in the garden on the side of our house - lavender and roses there.  And there’s a lot (too much) clover in our backyard. That would be some yummy honey.

As for the birds, I had news from my friends at the Shaw School in U.K. They email from time to time and I visited there in March, where I met their hamster named Humphrey.

Apparently Humphrey recently got out of his cage (it is suspected he had a little human help) but after 24 hours they found him and he’s doing fine. They also had some baby birds hatch in a nest outside a window - they had a video camera so the students could watch the eggs’ progress. When they hatched, the children named them Betty and Birney. I have never been so honored! I’m sure they’re well out of the nest now. Bon voyage, Betty and Birney!

I do love birds. In fact, I talk to the birds in the yard outside my office. Some of them - like the mockingbirds - talk back.

When I’m out of state and I talk about our wildlife in the backyard (skunks, possums, squirrels, r___s - and twice I’ve seen coyotes in the front yard), people say, “Oh, so you don’t live in L.A.” But I do. L.A. is not all concrete. It is lush, verdant, mountainous and we are at the bottom of a canyon with two wildlife preserves at the top. We have avocados, lemons and limes. Our neighbors have oranges, apricots, avocados and figs. The house behind us has a banana tree. Animals love these things as much as people. 

Our backyard is a paradise and completely private. But we live on a busy street. Nobody really understands L.A.!