Are you ready to take a journey into the wild?

Bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to create THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON. Jack certainly lived a wild life, which inspired Golden & Lebbon to create this new book series based on his real-life travels. They’ve taken his true stories and his fiction and mixed in urban legends and myths of the time. While THE SECRET JOURNEYS series is fiction, not biography, the books are extremely well-researched, and spooky elements add another level of intrigue to the richly detailed stories.

The first book, THE WILD, will be released on Tuesday, March 1st. When seventeen-year-old Jack London travels to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush, the path he treads is not at all what he expected. Along the way, he encounters kidnappers, traders, traitors, and a mysterious wolf. Jack must face the wild head-on in order to survive.

The buzz for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON just keeps getting louder. 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to the series. Garth Nix, author of the Abhorsen Trilogy, declared: “A masterful mix of gold, cold, supernatural creatures, and dread magic makes this a great action adventure story.” Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, calls THE WILD “A great old-school adventure novel and the best use of the Wendigo legend I’ve ever read.”

Authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will launch a blog tour the day before the book’s release, beginning at Bildungsroman on Monday, February 28th and traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers through Tuesday, March 8th. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book.

Here’s the full schedule:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

Publishing details: THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON: THE WILD Written by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon Illustrated by Greg Ruth On sale: March 1st, 2011 Published by HarperCollins Childrens ISBN: 9780061863172

http://www.christophergolden.com http://www.timlebbon.net

My column in the January 2011 issue of School Library Monthly, entitled “Resolving the Quiet Crisis: Reading Apprenticeships in Middle and High Schools” and co-authored with Katelyn Browne and Elizabeth Koehler, is now available.

I have recently added a unit plan as an example of the type of instructional planning services I offer.

I created this monthly report for the school library media center where I completed my field experience:

Here are two video resources I created during my field experience:

Here are two more videos of me telling stories in my storytelling class. The volume in both is very quiet, so you’ll need to turn it up on your computer to get the full effect.

Welcome to my new home, here at my own domain.  LiveJournal was just not doing what I needed it to do anymore, and thus we have the new lectitans.

If you’re looking for posts on a particular topic, please check out the tag cloud at the right.  I haven’t settled yet on whether I’ll be using categories for new posts, so tags are the best way to navigate topically for now.

Coming soon: reviews of The Spymaster’s Lady and Rebecca.

 1. Angel: After the Fall, Volume 1, Brian Lynch
2. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
3. Hooked on Murder, Betty Hechtman
4. That Was Then, This Is Now, S. E. Hinton
5. Rumblefish, S. E. Hinton
6. Tex, S. E. Hinton
7. Vampire Kisses, Ellen Schreiber
8. Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk
9. Emma, Jane Austen (Audiobook, re-read)
10. The Ghost Belonged to Me, Richard Peck
11. Are You in the House Alone? Richard Peck
12. Just a Minute! A Trickster Tale and Counting Book, Yuyi Morales
13. Chidi Only Likes Blue: An African Book of Colors, Ifeoma Onyefulu
14. Superhero ABC, Bob McLeod
15. Black Cat, Christopher Myers
16. Going North, Janice N. Harrington
17. Heat Wave, Richard Castle
18. Stan Lee: Creator of Spider-Man, Raymond H. Miller
19. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
20. Amulet, Book 1: The Stonekeeper, Kazu Kibuishi
21. Magic Knight Rayearth, Vol. 1, CLAMP.
22. Food Matters, Mark Bittman
22. Feathers, Jacqueline Woodson
23. Which Way Freedom? Joyce Hansen
24. She’s All That! Poems About Girls, Belinda Hollyer (selector)
25. Creature Carnival, Marilyn Singer
26. Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse, Marilyn Singer
27. Wind of a Thousand Tales, John Glore
28. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (begun in 2009)
29. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
30. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
31. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins
32. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
33. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
34. Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky, Elphinstone Dayrell
35. We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Pact Led to Success, Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, with Sharon Draper
36. Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, Deborah Heiligman
37. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (audibook; re-read)
38. Coraline, Neil Gaiman (graphic novel version)
39. Persuasion, Jane Austen (audiobook)
40. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen (audiobook)
41. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (audiobook, re-read)
42. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (audiobook)
43. The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole

Author and blogger Tanita S. Davis has set up a contest exclusively for homeschoolers to win a copy of her book, Mare’s War. Check it out!

Have you ever found that the cover of a book grossly misrepresented its contents, and that this misrepresentation seemed to keep the book from finding what would otherwise be its natural audience?  A bunch of bloggers have, which is why over at Bookshelves of Doom, Leila is sponsoring a cover design contest for Jenny Davidson’s, Ysabeau Wilce’s, and D. M. Cornish’s works, all of which fit in this category.

The contest is part of a larger multi-blog celebration of overlooked and/or misrepresented alternate history and steampunk books which will take place the week of December 13th.  Keep an eye out for more info as that week gets closer!