Book Giveaway: LEAFY LANDMARKS: Travels with Trees by Michelle Schaub

Michelle Schaub has a new non-fiction picture book, LEAFY LANDMARKS: Travels with Trees, illustrated by Anne Lambelet, and published by Sleeping Bear Press on March 15th. Sleeping Bear Press has agreed to send a copy to one lucky winner in the US.

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 about a new book. So, thanks for helping Michelle and Anne.

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

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Road trips can be a lot of fun, especially when there are intriguing places to visit and new things to learn. Through a variety of poetic forms, readers are taken on an armchair cross-country journey across the continental United States to visit 14 historic tree sites, some famous and others less well-known. From the Emancipation Oak in Hampton, Virginia, to the Methuselah tree in Shulman Grove, California, readers will discover trees that have traveled to the moon, witnessed the founding of our country, and inspired hope during troubled times. Fascinating facts covering geography, history, and nature will encourage everyone, young and old, to take a closer look at our arboreal friends. An author’s note provides tips on how to be a tree champion and how to plan your own “leafy” road trip.

BOOK JOURNEY:

I’m excited to share the journey of Leafy Landmarks: Travels with Trees, published by Sleeping Bear Press and illustrated by the amazing Anne Lambelet. It’s been quite a road trip! The journey started in 2007 with a picnic. My children and I were enjoying deviled eggs and carrot sticks beneath a stately oak at our local arboretum. On the ground near our blanket was a plaque titled “Illinois Millennium Landmark Tree.” The plaque explained that the oak we sat beneath had once been a gathering place for the Potawatomi people. Intrigued, I did a little research. I discovered that in 2000, a not-for-profit organization called America the Beautiful Fund honored one historic tree from each state. Now there’s an idea for a book, I thought!

My original plan was to write about all 50 Millennium Landmark Trees. I soon discovered that many of the trees were from the same species and marked similar historic moments. In addition, not all of the stories would appeal to kids. With a picture book audience in mind, I zoomed in on trees that would capture a child’s interest- like the trees that traveled to the moon as seeds!  I also expanded my search trees to include superlative trees- the tallest, oldest, and largest trees in the United States.

Eventually, I settled on fourteen trees located in various places around the country. I wrote the first version of the book, which I called Rooted in History, as a series of prose vignettes. I organized these vignettes chronologically according to historical moments. At a nonfiction workshop sponsored by SCBWI Illinois, an editor expressed interest in my project. However, the editor wanted to publish the book with photographs of the trees to accompany my text. While I was eager to be published, the direction of the project didn’t feel right. I envisioned the book with vibrant illustrations, not photos. After some difficult soul searching, I decided not to work with that publisher.

In the meantime, I started honing my poetic voice and publishing poems in children’s magazines and anthologies. I decided to revisit Rooted in History as a poetry collection. After several rounds of rejection, I realized the collection needed a more kid-friendly format. Instead of organizing the poems chronologically, I reframed the collection as a family road trip. I changed the title to TREE- mendous: A Road Trip Through Poems. I also added an introductory poem, “Hit the Road.” Finally, I included a map to indicate the locations of the trees and the family’s road trip route.

After nearly 18 years of traveling the road of revision, rejection, and more revision, my book finally reached its destination with Barb McNally at Sleeping Bear Press. At this point, another picture book had been published using the “tree-mendous” play on words: Treemendous, Diary of a Not Yet Mighty Oak. This necessitated another title change. After much back and forth with the marketing team, we landed on Leafy Landmarks: Travels with Trees. For the sake of layout, we cut a couple of trees. We also added one new poem about the Pando Aspen Grove in Fishlake National Forest, Utah. Pando, covering the area of 90 football fields, is one giant organism with over 40,000 cloned trunks.  After visiting this breathtaking grove, I knew it needed to be included in the collection. When Anne Lambelet agreed to do the illustrations for Leafy Landmarks, I was thrilled. Her dynamic art brings the trees and their fascinating stories to life!

MICHELLE’S BIO:

Michelle Schaub is an award-winning children’s author and veteran teacher. Her book Fresh-Picked Poetry: A Day at the Farmers’ Market won the 2018 Growing Good Kids Award and 2019 Northern Lights Book Award. She is also the author of Finding Treasure: A Collection of Collections, an NCTE notable poetry book for 2020, and Dream Big, Little Scientists. Her poems appear in several anthologies, including The Poetry Anthology for Celebrations and Great Morning! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud.

Michelle speaks at conferences on the power of poetry to boost literacy and shares ways to use poetry in the classroom on her blog POETRY BOOST, www.michelleschaub.blogspot.com. Follow Michelle on twitter @Schaubwrites.

ANNE’S BIO:

Anne Lambelet  earned a bachelor’s degree in illustration from the University of the Arts in 2014 where she was awarded the Roger T. Hane award for the top illustration portfolio by a senior.  Since then she has worked with several clients:

• HarperCollins – Simon & Schuster – Owlcrate – Page Street Kids – Sleeping Bear Press

• Millbrook press – Calkins Creek – The Boston Globe magazine – The Progressive 

• Minnesota Monthly – Virginia living – North American Review –Grid Magazine  

• Anthology Magazine – and more!

Her first author-illustrated picture book, Maria the Matador, was published by Page Street Kids in February of 2019 followed by a second author-illustrated book, Dogs and their People, in June and The Traveler’s Gift by Danielle Davison in October .

She currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband Brice, her adorable dog, Eevee and her morbidly obese (but also adorable) cat, Fitzgerald. For children’s book illustration, she is represented by Stephanie Fretwell-Hill at Red Fox Literary. You can contact her by emailing her at annemlambelet@gmail.com or by using one of the methods below.

Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/Instagram

Michelle, thank you for sharing you book and process with us. This picture book has everything a reader could want. Beautiful illustrations that help tell a story jammed pack with interesting information kids, parents, and teachers will gobble up. 

I love the text you wrote for the map that kicks off the story:

Hit The Road

Come take an arbor road trip
in search of sights TREE-mendous;
landmarks of the timber kind,
with stories quite stupendous.
We’ll seek out trees superlative
in height and size and age;
others famous for their role
on history’s grand stage.
We’ll zigzag up steep mountainsides,
meander shore to shore,
and learn about these trees through verse.
Branch out, and let’s explore!

And I adore the colorful map showing the little hands marking up the map with colored pencils, crayons, to draw the route for their trip. Every illustration Anne created for this book is perfect.

Michelle’s poems use different poetic forms to tell the story of a family crossing the United States visiting 14 historical tree sites. What a great fun way to share interesting information about each stop along their journey. It was pure genius. In addition to the poems, I love how Anne used the endpapers to show the leaves from the trees featured in the book and how each leaf had a discription of each poetic form that readers can use to help them try their hand at writing that type of poem.

Example: Etheree: a 10-line poem. The first line has
1 syllable. Each line adds a syllable until the
tenth line has 10 syllables. Etherees can also
“shrink” from 10 syllables to 1.

Teacher’s will love this book since it opens doors to so many lesson plans children will be eager to soak up.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy