🍌B IS FOR BANANAS is out today!

I feel so lucky to have gotten to make this book with our amazing Team Banana. Thanks to Estrela Lourenço for her amazing illustrations and friendship! Thanks to Cheryl Eissing for her wonderful editorial eye, and for reigning me in when I try to put leeches into too many books. Thanks to the whole Flamingo Books team and Penguin Young Readers for ushering this book into being. Thanks to my agent Tracy Marchini for her help along the way. And huge thanks to my critique partners, without whom this book would still be a pile of first draft garbage. Books truly are a team effort, and this book wouldn’t be here without these people and many more.

This book takes a lot of inspiration from real life in raising my son. I am a proponent of playful parenting thanks to influences like Aha Parenting, and Lawrence J. Cohen (www.playfulparenting.com). This book incorporates some of the silliness my son and I have gone through with our own bedtime routine. I hope this book is both fun and silly for kids to read with their grown-ups, and also an inspiration for parents to play with their kids!

B Is for Bananas, illustrated by Estrela Lourenço, and coming out April 11th, 2023, has been selected as an Amazon Editor’s Pick for the Best Books of April for Ages 3-5, along with one of my picture book author idols. Can you guess who?!

Last night I attended the Oregon Book Awards Ceremony, as a finalist for the Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature. What a night! So much fun to celebrate friends old and new. Huge congratulations to my critique partner Dane Liu for her win for FRIENDS ARE FRIENDS FOREVER! It was an honor to be a finalist alongside her book and other finalists Zoey Abbott, Cathy Camper, and Trudy Ludwig. Thanks to Literary Arts for putting on this amazing event!

Yippee! Counting to Bananas is a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Awards for the Eloise Jarvis McGraw Award for Children’s Literature, along with some other incredible books!

Congratulations to all the finalists!:

• Zoey Abbott of Portland, Pig and Horse and the Something Scary (Abrams/Abrams Books for Young Readers)
• Cathy Camper of Portland, Arab Arab All Year Long! (Candlewick Press)
• Dane Liu of Portland, Friends Are Friends, Forever (Henry Holt and Co.)
• Trudy Ludwig of Portland, Brave Every Day (Alfred A. Knopf/Knopf Books for Young Readers)
• Carrie Tillotson of Tigard, Counting to Bananas: A Mostly Rhyming Fruit Book (Flamingo Books/Penguin Young Readers)

Will I see you at the awards ceremony on April 3rd?

🍌The first review is in for B IS FOR BANANAS, and Kirkus Reviews calls it “an a-peeling alphabet adventure”! So happy for our team with illustrator Estrela Lourenço, editor Cheryl Eissing, and all the other amazing folks at Flamingo Books. 😍 And thank you Kirkus Reviews!

🌛Read the full review here.
🌟Preorder your copy.
🍌Release Date: April 11, 2023 from Flamingo Books/Penguin Young Readers

Congratulations to all the winners of School Library Journal’s 2022 Undies Case Covers Awards! And hugest congrats to Estrela Lourenço, the mastermind behind the case cover for our book, COUNTING TO BANANAS, winner of the category for best “Something to Read.”

I have loved the case cover she made all along, but recently found out from Estrela that the premise is that not only does Banana want to be the star of our book, but rather Banana wants to take over all media, from books to newspapers and magazines to flyers. So brilliant!

Check out more about the awards and winners here.

Special thanks to Travis Jonker, Carter Higgins, and Mel Schuit for putting on this fun and fabulous award!

Do you know about Portland Book Festival? This daylong event features 100+ presenters in all-ages events, pop-up readings, an extensive book fair, food carts, and more at Portland Art Museum and neighboring venues, including me! It’s coming up on November 5th, 2022.

Come see me at:

Story Time with host Emily Arrow for a reading of Counting to Bananas
11:50am-12:10pm
Fields Ballroom, Portland Art Museum

Book Signing
12:10-12:30pm
Fields Ballroom, Portland Art Museum

Crafting with Counting to Bananas Activities
12:30-1:30pm
Fields Ballroom, Portland Art Museum

Making Picture Books Panel with Nora Ericson, Sabrina Moyle, and moderator Cathy Camper.
3:45pm-4:30pm
Portland Parks Foundation Tent

Book Signing
4:30pm
Mark Building, Portland Art Museum

Passes are on sale at Literary Arts now. I hope to see you there!

I just learned that Counting to Bananas has been selected as one of the Today Show’s best books for 3-year-olds! Thank you Today Show!

Counting to Bananas was nominated for the 2023 Red Bud Read-Aloud Award! Many thanks to Kyle and Kenneth Brown for organizing this very fun award where school children get to vote bracket-style for their favorite read-alouds.

I had so much fun celebrating the grand opening of Barnes and Noble’s new Hillsboro, Oregon store with a story time and book signing earlier this month. The store was big and beautiful, and the kids were a delight. One girl even stood at my table with me to help her complete her entire counting activity sheet. Such a joy. And the banana hat was a hit!