This was kind of a hard tour because it seemed like we’d just finished This is the Feast when we jumped into The Raucous Royals.
And then the first day of the tour, we all learned that Dewey had passed away unexpectedly (for us, anyway) and that took some of the jolly feeling out of the tour for many of us. Dewey was into the blogging community and she had a lot of friends. So her loss sent waves of sorrow through the book blogging world.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sobered me to read about her death. It served to remind me that life isn’t all fun and games and we do have influence on people we know only in a cyber sense. As soon as I read about her death I had to ask myself if I’d helped her or hindered in the email exchanges I’d had with her.
So we were feeling her loss.
Still we managed to talk about The Raucous Royals, which is good because evryone liked it. So it was nice to see it at the top of the Technorati page on the second day.
Thanks to all of you for getting the word about this worthy book. I already had one friend tell me she was buying the book for her nephew for Christmas.
If you haven’t read these interviews of Carlyn at SmallWorld Reads, and at Maw Books Blog, read them now. Carlyn reveals the topic of her next book. It sounds great!
I also loved this discussion between Noel, her sister Bree, and her cousin Marie, over at Never Jam Today. And what a surprise to find The Raucous Royalslinked to Twilight. heh heh That Noel is ever the inventive one. But, I’ll have you know, Raucous has been aboveTwilight at Technorati for three days running. Take that, Stephenie Meyer.
Yesterday The Raucous Royals were at number ten on Technorati’s popular books page. This morning we are at number two. The cool thing is that we are ahead of those hot chicks (4), Twilight (5), and Tales of Beedle the Bard (13). Yeehaw!
I was shocked to click over to The Hidden Side of a Leaf today looking for a blog tour post and to find instead an announcement from Dewey’s husband telling us she passed away last week.
Dewey signed up for the blog tour the first day I opened it up for people. She found me, I didn’t go looking for her. She struck me as an energetic book lover and book talker–just the kind of blogger I wanted on the tour.
And then she never actually made it on a tour. She moved and she had technical problems. And for this tour she had the book and she was ready to jump in with both feet. I was looking forward to her posts.
I’m sorry we didn’t get to know her better. She had a great blog–I loved the name.
And reading her husband’s note drives home the fact that the people behind these posts are living, breathing persons with sorrows and joys and frailties. I’m glad to live in a world where we can connect with each other over the Internet and our lives are made richer by people whose faces we’ve never seen but who have opened up pieces of their hearts to us in their posts.
Raucous Royals is a history book for middle grade kids–Amazon has it listed as being for four through eight-year-olds, but I’m sure they mean it’s for fourth through eighth graders.
I loved this book, and I’m looking forward to seeing what others have to say about it.
OK we’re ready to do our last blog tour for 2008. We wind up the year with a fun history book for middle graders, The Raucous Royals, written by Carlyn Beccia.
The full title of the book is actually, The Raucous Royals: Test your Royal Wits: Crack Codes, Solve Mysteries, and Deduce Which Royal Rumors are True.
We went to number one on Technorati the afternoon of the first day and we’ve stayed for three solid days. It appears that Technorati is broken, frozen in place, and I say, “What a wonderful time for it to break.” It’s like when the Ferris wheel stops and you’re in the top car and you sit up there swinging back and forth and looking out over all the lights of the carnival. Perfect.
I like having This is the Feast sitting above that other book for three days running. Too fun.
We had seventeen blogs participating in the tour. Twelve went for three days! I’m so proud of you all!
We had contests with prizes (If you haven’t seen mine at All About Children’s Books, go check it out. It will go on through Thanksgiving Day, and it’s a fun one, I think.) interviews, and many, many wonderful reviews. We had recipes, memes, poems, history lessons, and craft ideas.
This was a fun, fun, tour. Thanks to all of you for taking part!
Rolling right along with day three of the This is the Feast Children’s Book Blog Tour! We maintain the top spot on Technorati for the time being.
More importantly, we’ve had some great posts.
Check out what Bellezza did with photos she took of the book. I love that. And she did a wonderful review. (Heh heh, now we know what kinds of book’s she likes we won’t send her anymore of the ones with bare breasts.)
Noel, at Never Jam Today, has done her usual, above and beyond posts, revealing the answers to secret questions we all had but were afraid to ask. She’s one of my all time favorite librarians. Check her out.
Becky, my favorite prolific reviewer, has put up a Thanksgiving Meme which I’m going to answer on my blog later today. She gets extra points for changing A mom pseaks to A mom speaks, also. Yeah for Becky who always posts on time, always does something interesting, and always gets her links in working order.
Kathy at Homeschool Buzz gave us traditions, recipes, crafts and even dug up what the Z stands for in Diane Z. Shore’s name.
Through the Looking Glass has a nice interview where Shore reveals a secret in learning how to write rhyming children’s books.
Superfast Reader at Reading is My Superpower has been cracking me up this time with stories about Superfast Hubby and Superfast Toddler.
And I finish up with Sarah at Small World Reads who may have written the perfect post here. Not too long, full of helpful info, and inspiring on several levels. She makes me want to be a better mom, and she teaches me something by calling attention to details in the book I’d not noticed, and she makes me want to thank God, too.
Well, actually, Courtney is bad. She had a misspelling in her email to me and I copied it over for you. But, ack, after all that talk about checking to make sure the links aren’t broken, you’d think I’d check them all myself a little more carefully.
The code for A Mom Speaks blog is mangled. Her address is http://amomspeaks.com/ . If you get a chance to fix it, in your posts, that would be great. Thanks.
Carlyn’s picture is here: 