Category Random House

Mar 26 2025

From 1,559 miles away

Hi everyone,

Three 5th grade students decided to tell me they like a book of mine, Paul Bunyan, My Story, which was illustrated by JOHN KANZLER and published by Random House in its Step into Reading series seventeen years ago and is still in print.

The kids who wrote about how they like the book go to school in Grassy Lake, a community of 856 in Alberta, Canada which is, according to Google, 1,559 miles from Springfield. They carefully illustrated covers and wrote notes with questions inside. Here they are.

One student wrote, “Please cherish this forever. It would mean a lot to me. I spent a lot of time on this.”

If she only knew. That something I wrote made it to Grassy Lake, that a teacher (who chose to remain anonymous) encouraged students to create cards, looked me up and mailed their work, is the sort of thoughtfulness that connects authors everywhere with children everywhere. We may only catch kids for a brief moment in their busy, ever-changing young lives, but we can cherish those connections forever.

I have written a letter to Nora, Frank, and Nelly. Today I plan to take it the post office. I’m here, kids. Thank you.

Sep 13 2022

It’s time for Johnny

Hi everyone,

This is the time of year when my book about John Chapman does well. I just checked on him and am glad to report he’s doing just fine.

Yesterday the book, published in 2001 as a Step Into Reading story by Random House, ranked #18,290 in Books overall
#26 in Children's Historical Biographies (Books)
#54 in English as a Second Language Instruction
#78 in Children's American History
Customer Reviews: 4.7 out of 5 stars    254 ratings

This morning the ratings have dipped a bit but hey, it's early yet for apple pickers. Back story about this one: I wrote it as a nonfiction book. At the last minute, my editor learned that another publisher was also bringing out a nonfiction edition of Appleseed. We added some dialogue, which technically turned it into fiction, and that saved the day. I don't know how many printings it's gone through but sales have reached 500,000 copies.