Philippa Dowding's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-gargoyle-in-my-yard"

I received the highest honour an author can possibly get this week: a letter from an educational assistant telling me that one of her grade 5 students read his first book this winter.

And it was a book written by me.

Then he read the rest of my books.

Then ... he wrote his OWN book.

Really touched and very, very honoured. What higher praise can an author possibly want or receive? I'm very lucky indeed.

Here's a link to the whole letter on my other blog: http://phdowding.blogspot.ca/2013/06/...

I've been away a bit, "remembering my summertimes," as Stuart Little famously said. I came back to a few nice surprises, namely more good reviews for my new book, Jake and the Giant Hand, plus a guest post on my publisher's blog, about what it felt like to receive my first award nomination.

A quick excerpt from the guest post: "I simply couldn’t believe it. I had to re-read the letter from the nominating committee about thirty times until it very, very slowly, sunk in. I don’t generally need that long to get the gist of something, but for several minutes I simply couldn’t grasp what I was reading. Eventually though, I did catch on. I got out of my chair and danced around my office, then through the house. Keeping the news quiet until the shortlist was officially announced was like trying not to let anyone see me breathe, or blink."

For more about Jake and the Giant Hand, and what makes authors dance around like nine-year-olds, here is my other blog: http://phdowding.blogspot.ca/2014/08/...

Really honoured that my 2009 title (and my first book), The Gargoyle in My Yard was named a "Great Reads for Kids" book in a new initiative from the Toronto Public Library and Kumon Math and Reading Centres.

There are 200 books on the list, about half of them are Canadian, and ALL of them are really great reads for kids 6-12. I'm so proud to be among them, thank you Toronto Public Library and Kumon!

Here's a link to a longer blog post about the Great Reads for Kids, take a look and find a great book for your child: http://phdowding.blogspot.ca/2015/11/...

My first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard was published 10 years ago, on April 1, 2009!

To celebrate, I'm posting all things gargoyle on my blog this month. First up is music!

Enjoy The Gargoyle Shuffle, on Bandcamp, free: https://philippadowding.bandcamp.com/...

I wrote this song in 2014, and have played it to thousands of children across Canada since. This new version is recorded with the book's editor, Allister Thompson (we've edited 12 books together now!).

Here's a YouTube video of me playing the song, and kids dancing it, in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsVCI...

Thanks to author Rebecca Upjohn for the video!

Here's a longer blog post about gargoyles, publishing 10 years, music and more: http://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/04...

Hug a gargoyle today!

The 10th Anniversary Gargoyle Extravaganza Continues! My first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard turns ten in April, 2019, and there's a lot of FREE GARGOYLE STUFF FOR YOU!

Like what you ask?

How about The Gargoyle Shuffle? Yep, that's me playing guitar. Here's a taste of the shuffle: https://philippadowding.bandcamp.com/...

Or recordings of the author (yep, also me) reading two chapters of the book live, the chapters that I read when I do class visits.

AND FREE Teacher's Guides for the entire Lost Gargoyle Series!

Find your free gargoyle stuff here, enjoy!: https://phdowding.blogspot.com/2019/0...