James Horvath's Blog

Cleveland Ohio Book Tour

I had a wonderful opportunity to do a 10-day promotional book tour for my third Children’s Picture Book “Work, Dogs, Work: a A Highway Tail”. Thanks to Cleveland State University’s Center for Excellence & Innovation in Education I was able to visit several local schools and have the chance to talk to thousands of kids. Here’s the video from my book tour. Hope you enjoy it.

http://youtu.be/jXLxKhn-8Uk

http://clevelandschoolsbookfund.org/author-series/

Goodreads Giveaway

Hey everyone

I'm giving away 5 copies of Work, Dogs, Work: A Highway Tail at the end of September. Click over to Goodreads and enter to win a signed copy.

Road Maze

Here's a new activity sheet. Can you help Duke, Buddy and Max get to their trucks? There's a lot of tangled highway to get through! Here's a link to the downloadable PDF page. Road Work

Learn to Draw Jinx!

Here's a fun little activity sheet you can download. The link to the PDF is Here.
Have fun learning to draw Jinx!

Work, Dogs, Work ��� Kirkus Review

I just saw the new review for Work, Dogs, Work: A Highway Tail from the folks at Kirkus. I've been very fortunate to have all three of my books in the series get very favorable reviews. 
Here's the take away snippet from the review, "Big trucks, jovial dogs and snappy rhyming text serve again as the building blocks of another successful entry in this solidly built series. (Picture book. 3-8)"
You can see the full review here:  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-horvath/work-dogs-work/

Work, Dogs, Work – Kirkus Review

I just saw the new review for Work, Dogs, Work: A Highway Tail from the folks at Kirkus. I've been very fortunate to have all three of my books in the series get very favorable reviews. 
Here's the take away snippet from the review, "Big trucks, jovial dogs and snappy rhyming text serve again as the building blocks of another successful entry in this solidly built series. (Picture book. 3-8)"
You can see the full review here:  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-horvath/work-dogs-work/

New Ad for Publisher's Weekly

I've been working on a little animated GIF ad for Publisher's Weekly. I'm struggling to get the file size down to an acceptable number without sacrificing the image quality too much. 

I think I'm losing the battle...

Hopefully they won't notice that I'm WAY over the limit of 40K. But at 197K, it's significantly smaller than my original 720. And that should count for something, right?

Is it any good?

Great review from Common Sense Media for Build Dogs Build. It's always nice to be compared to the classics!

"James Horvath has another hit read-aloud with BUILD, DOGS, BUILD . As in his first book,  Dig, Dogs, Dig , Horvath leads readers through the process of construction, with the added fun of demolition this time around. The rickety building comes down with a satisfying "BOOM" -- "Wreck, dogs, wreck!" He presents a parade of construction equipment including a crane, a dump truck, a trencher, a pumper, and more to take kids from the laying of underground pipes to the placement of glass on the highest floors of the new building. 

Like  Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day  and the classic  Go, Dog. Go! , this book is packed with humorous touches and helpful details. Definitely a keeper."

You can see all the details here: 
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/build-dogs-build-a-tall-tail

School Library Journal Review

Just received a great review from School Library Journal.

HORVATH, James. Build, Dogs, Build: A Tall Tail. illus. by author. 40p. HarperCollins/Harper. Jan. 2014. Tr $15.99. ISBN 9780062189677.
The canine crew from Horvath’s Dig, Dogs, Dig (HarperCollins, 2013) is needed again, this time on a demolition job, so foreman Duke and his enthusiastic pack head downtown. There’s an old building there that has to come down to make way for new high-rise homes at Bark Avenue. Their wrecking ball crashes into the structure with a gigantic “BOOM.” The yellow bulldozer clears “piles of rubble, and/bricks and concrete/without any trouble,” while the red and blue dump truck hauls it all away. 
Working dogs deserve a treat, so they grab a quick snack at the “R-Coach,” which features hot dogs, corn dogs, chili dogs, and the like. The work isn’t finished yet; there are trenches to be built for pipes and drains, a foundation to pour, girders to weld, and cables to run. The afternoon break involves a good game of fetch before installing the finishing touches on the interior. All in all, the penthouse, with its terrace and pool, is perfect, and tomorrow the mutts are off to another job. 
Horvath’s cartoonlike illustrations were created digitally, and the dogs are reminiscent of a beloved old Saturday-morning character, Augie Doggie. Youngsters who can’t get enough books with pictures of heavy equipment will be attracted to this one. – Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA

Best Books of 2013

A friend just sent me a great link to Atlanta Parent Online. They selected Dig, Dogs, Dig for one of their "Best Books of 2013" in the preschool to Elementary category. 

Thanks Atlanta, I've just selected you as "One of my Favorite Cities"! Here's the link to the online article.

http://www.atlantaparent.com/article/detail/best_books_of_20131