Book Giveaway: EVERYBODY’S TREE by Barbara Joosse

Barbara Joosse has written a new picture book, EVERYBODY’S TREE, illustrated by Renée Graef and publish by Sleeping Bear Press. They have agreed to send a copy to the one lucky winner.

All you have to do to get in the running is leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on Facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Just let me know other things you do to share the good news, so I can put the right amount of tickets in my basket for you. Sharing on Facebook, Twitter or reblogging really helps spread the word for a new book. So, thanks for helping Barbara and Renée.

If you have signed up to follow my blog and it is delivered to you everyday, please let me know when you leave a comment and I will give you an extra ticket. Thanks!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Over the course of eighty years a spruce tree grows, along with the little boy who first selected it at a tree farm. As the tree grows from sapling to magnificent evergreen, the child matures as well, becoming a father and then grandfather. Now at the end of its life, the glorious tree is chosen to be the centerpiece of a city’s holiday celebration. The tree journeys from rural countryside to big city center, where everyone, young and old, comes together to celebrate a tree for all; everybody’s tree.

BOOK JOURNEY:

Every author hears, many more times than we’d like: “Great story.  But the timing isn’t right.”  Shouldn’t a great story be right any time?  Shouldn’t you want to publish my great story NOW?

I wrote Everybody’s Tree over ten years ago, a heartfelt story of a sapling that grows into its destiny— the magnificent centerpiece of a city’s holiday celebration, the city Christmas Tree.  The story chronicles the tree’s life along with the small boy who plants it.  As the boy and his family grow, so does the tree.

At the beginning of the story, the little sapling has a big thought, one shared by many children:

 

I’m just a little sprout from a mighty spruce tree,

and I wonder—I wonder!—what I will be?

 

I don’t yet know what I will be

or if there’s something great in me.

But I will wait, and I will grow,

and one day, one year I will know.

 

This had been a dark time for me as an author.  No one was buying.  I asked myself if my stories were relevant to today’s market.  I asked myself if my life as a writer was over.

But I have this friend, Renee Graef, an illustrator.  She’s one of those friends who reminds you of who you are when you’ve forgotten, and she absolutely positively refused to let me give up.  So I dug in and tried again, writing “Everybody’s Tree.”

The story had all the elements I want my stories to have: playful, musical language, heartfelt connection, inclusivity and a sense of urgency:

Oh, the cold, it is a-stinging

and the bells, they are a-ringing

and everybody’s singing

for the lighting

oh tonight-ing

of EVERYBODY’S TREE!

Renee created pagination for the story along with sketches.  My agent sent it out, and “Everybody’s Tree” was met with the dreaded “great-story-not-t

he-right-time” response.  Ugh.

But writing the story had effectively removed writer’s block and I was on my way again.  Meanwhile, “Everybody’s Tree” was forgotten, like a once-beloved childhood toy.  I moved on, but not Renee.  After ten years, we’d collaborated on several books and now she was eager to find more stories for us to create.  She reminded me of our long-ago story.  “Yeah,” I said.  “I kinda remember it.  But I don’t think it was very good.”  Renee insisted.  Loudly.  “YES IT WAS!  READ IT AGAIN!!”

The problem was, I couldn’t even find it.  In one of my studio purges, I’d tossed it.  Renee was insistent.  “BARB!  LOOK.  AGAIN.”  This time I spied a shelf, so high I couldn’t reach.  I climbed atop a ladder, inching my fingers toward a small stack of papers.  I slid the papers down and there it was.  “Everybody’s Tree.”  I read the story and came to the same conclusion, “Not very good.”  But I sent it anyway, to Barb McNally of Sleeping Bear Press.

I’m not proud of this and I do NOT advise this to any author at any time.  I said, “I know this story isn’t very good right now.  It needs a lot of work.”  Undeterred, Barb read it immediately and within hours emailed back, “I love the story.  Do NOT touch it!”

Ten years had passed and, while the story hadn’t changed, the world had.  Covid made us feel isolated and afraid.  Politics separated us.  We longed to feel good, to feel that we were together, celebrating something as one— not people defined by party affiliation or color or age or neighborhood.  The sentiment of a tree—the loving gift of a family to “share with everybody everywhere”—was no longer cliche.    It was as fresh as the scent of a pine tree.  It was a sparkling story who’s time had come to shine.

 

I shine so the darkest corner has light

on the shortest of days and the coldest of nights.

I shine so you have something warm to share

when you hold hands together in the frosty air.

 

I shine for you.

I shine for me.

I am Everybody’s Christmas Tree.

BARBARA BIO:

Barbara M. Joosse is an American children’s writer. She has been writing for children for over thirty years. She has published fifty-four books for children, both picture books and chapter books. Through her writing, she aspires to find the things that are the same, and the things that are different, between us all.

She has toured worldwide to promote her books, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and attended college in Wisconsin, first at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and received her B.A. at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She attended University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee from 1977-80, taking creative writing classes. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Council for Wisconsin Writers.

RENEE’S BIO:

Renée Graef is an award-winning illustrator who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in art. She has illustrated over 80 books for children, including the Kirsten series in the American Girl collection and many of the My First Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Renée worked as a creative director for the Little House program at Harper Collins for five years and enjoyed traveling to the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites.

Renée has also illustrated classics such as The Nutcracker and My Favorite Things, as well as books about American icons: Mount Rushmore and Paul Bunyan. She has worked on books/cookbooks for Lidia Bastianich (of PBS’s Lidia’s Italy). Renée’s most recent alphabet books are on timekeeping and on lighthouses of the Great Lakes. Renée worked with the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on Thèrése Makes a Tapestry, a historical fiction highlighting the weaving of tapestries during the 1670’s in Paris.

Ms. Graef’s accomplishments have been honored by the Society of Illustrators-Los Angeles and the State of Wisconsin’s House of Representatives, among other groups and her work has been exhibited in numerous solo shows. Renée splits her time between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California.

Barbara, thank you for sharing your book an journey with us. I love how this cover glows in the dark. I find myself turning off the lights just to enjoy the lights on the tree. As always, I love Renee’s gorgeous art and I loved my journey reading and watching the sapling grow into a beautiful old tree that is shared with everyone. And I especially love the last page, which you shared above, but is worth sharing again.

I shine so the darkest corner has light

on the shortest of days and the coldest of nights.

I shine so you have something warm to share

when you hold hands together in the frosty air.

I shine for you.

I shine for me.

I am Everybody’s Christmas Tree.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy