You caught me reading New Pet!  Have you ever wanted a new pet?  Did you have to convince someone that you’d be responsible to take care of it?  That’s what this story is about.  Manny finds a stray elephant and brings it home!  People often ask where I got the idea for the elephant.  Well, a long time ago… I had a job at a zoo.  I worked in the nursery – where all the baby animals were.  It was lots of fun!  There were baby ostriches, lions, tigers, bears and even baby chimpanzees!  There were also baby elephants.  I remember one baby elephant especially…
it was the inspiration for the elephant in New Pet!

Here I am at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  This one of the biggest book festivals in the world!   You can find me there signing books in the children’s area!  After your done visiting me, you can spend the day meeting hundreds of other great authors and illustrators from just about everywhere!  There are all sorts of specialty booths as well.  I brought a few of my antique children’s books to one of the antiquarians who was able to tell me about them!  This great festival is on the last weekend of April every year!  See you there!
www.latimestimes.com

This is Joan!  She’s the owner of La Galette Creperie in San Clemente, California.  You might find me there in the morning sipping a latte and munching on a yummy breakfast crepe as I think about an idea for my next book!  This was a book signing for New Pet and we had lots of fun!  I got a Nutella and banana crepe with cream.  I almost forgot about signing books!
Visit La Galette Creperie at www.lagalettecrepes.com

Here I am with authors Christina Das and Monica Gunning at the Mission Viejo Readers’ Festival!  It was a really hot day and as you could see, I was hiding from the sun!  Christina is the author and illustrator of several rhyming picture books!  I sat in on her presentation about how she started writing when she was very young and how she comes up with ideas.  I brought home her book ‘Oomph-Pa-Pa at the Circus’ and read it that night!  I also listened to poet Monica Gunning who is also the author of several books!  She read a selection of poems and talked about her life as a child in Jamaica.  One of her books, ‘Under the Breadfruit Tree’ reminded me of eating breadfruit during my last visit to the West Indies!  I read it that night too!

Visit Christina Das at www.christinadas.com
Visit Monica Gunning at www.biography.jrank.org