Kurtis Scaletta's Blog

I watched a terrific documentary about black mambas on PBS tonight. I had to because just about every member of my family called or emailed to let me know it was on.

I wish the show had aired a year ago when I was researching Mamba Point! It's really hard to find more than basic information about mambas at the library or on the Internet, and in one hour I got it all. What mambas eat, where they live, how they hunt, how big they are, how fast they are, and how they make baby snakes.

The show...

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I asked what scary children's novel featured the cover text "Time is running out for Lewis and his Uncle Jonathan…."? The answer, as a few people knew, is John Bellairs' The House with a Clock in Its Walls, the first of Lewis Barnavelt's famous gothic adventures. The next trivia question will be posted on Friday the 13th.

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Once again I revert to my book blogger days so I can talk about James Preller's Bystander, published this year by Feiwel and Friends.

Google alerted me to Jim Preller's work when somebody mentioned Mudville on his blog. I started following along, especially after I read his beautiful baseball novel Six Innings. And what do you know, he also wrote a kids baseball book that gets its name from "Casey at the Bat." He's also the author of a popular series of mysteries about a kid named Jigsaw...

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My wife directed me to this excellent video that serves as a much better illustration of the mambo, and kind of makes me wish I had written about that. But what's done is done. And I can't top this anyway.

See more funny videos and Cute Animals Videos at Today's Big Thing.

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I seriously do appreciate it when people blog about my books, even if theit entries are not all primroses and strawberry pie, and I'm reluctant to point out mistakes or anything I disagree with. But after seeing my book referred to as "Mambo Point" twice this week, I just want to make it clear that my next book is about this:

And not this:

I'm not naming names or pointing fingers. Seriously, thanks for the mention. Just wanted to straighten things out. Although both look pretty wriggly.

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The O.W.L. is a middle grade lit blog by a middle grade schoolteacher, and she's not only made me the featured author for November, she's giving away a copy of Mudville. All you have to do is tell her your favorite baseball team, but there's other ways to sweeten the pot.

Just go here to enter!

I asked if she would automatically disqualify Yankees fans, and she said no.*

* I didn't, really.

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November is, as many people know, National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo." It basically means you crank out a novel in 30 days, with a minimum length of 50,000 words, although I imagine children's book writers get away with shorter word counts.

I am not a NaNoWriMo participant, because although I've been known to write over thousand words in a day, there's no way I could do that every day for thirty days. The idea behind the contest is "quantity, not quality," but even without attention t...

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November is, as many people know, National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo." It basically means you crank out a novel in 30 days, with a minimum length of 50,000 words, although I imagine children's book writers get away with shorter word counts.

I am not a NaNoWriMo participant, because although I've been known to write over thousand words in a day, there's no way I could do that every day for thirty days. The idea behind the contest is "quantity, not quality," but even without attention t...

View full post on Kurtis Scaletta's website »

The first edition of what scary children's novel featured the cover text "Time is running out for Lewis and his Uncle Jonathan…."? (Enter Here)

View full post on Kurtis Scaletta's website »

View full post on Kurtis Scaletta's website »