Launching Kimberley Griffiths Little & The Healing Spell

Robin and I are very excited to both congratulate

our SVP reader, Kimberley Griffiths Little, and help her launch her new novel!

THE HEALING SPELL

Kimberley Griffiths Little

Scholastic, July 1, 2010

Hardcover, 368 pages

Reading level: ages 9-12

Twelve-year-old Livie is living with a secret and it's crushing her. She knows she is responsible for her mother's coma, but she can't tell anyone. It's up to her to find a way to wake her momma up.

Stuck in the middle of three sisters, hiding a forbidden pet alligator, and afraid to disappoint her daddy, whom she loves more than anyone else, Livie struggles to find her place within her own family as she learns about the powers of faith and redemption. Livie's powerful, emotional, and sometimes humorous story will stay with readers long after the last line is read.

“An incantational tale of Cajun magic and gators on the bayou and of the love and silence between mother and daughter.” RICHARD PECK, Newbery Medalist

“The Healing Spell is an atmospheric, affecting story of hope and devotion, as elegant and mysterious as bayou country itself.” CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH, acclaimed author of Tantalize and Eternal

You will not want to miss Kimberley's fabulous book trailer! She took half the photos and wrote the script. This one pulls you way, way in! Strong work, Kimberley! Click for trailer here.

You can look forward to the companion novel to The Healing Spell, entitled The Circle of Secrets, which will be published by Scholastic in November 2011.

Kimberley lives on a dirt road in a small town by the Rio Grande with her husband, a robotics engineer and their three sons. Kimberley is a popular speaker at schools around the country, presenting “The Creative Diary”, a highly successful writing workshop. She is the recipient of the Southwest Book Award and is the author of several novels which have been selected for state reading lists. She has also been a keynote speaker at the NMLA conference. Kimberley is a co-founder of Spellbinders, a national newsletter for Educators and Librarians to create life-long readers.

Kimberley's lush, newly renovated website offers a Teacher's Guide for her book available for downloading and printing.

She also offers a a very creative and compelling Mother/Daughter Book Club Guide for her new book. It makes me wish I had a daughter-- anyone have an extra they can lend me?

I get complete crushes on authors that lead with generosity, soul, and a zealous desire to advocate for reading. Richard Peck has been on my list for years. His literacy crusade is worthy of a knight. I asked Kimberley how on EARTH she managed to get Himself to blurb her new novel. You can read how that happened on her blog here.

And by the way, the Carolyn See book she refers to is definitely not-to-be-missed! Thanks, Kimberley, for a cool story and for joining us in making the case for karmic networking. And, for being one of those generous, soulful advocates that we love.

Kimberley and friends have been busy this month celebrating her new novel. You can join in the fun if you H-U-R-R-Y over to her blog before July 15th and leave a comment on this post. You could win a swampful of awesome cool schwag. I'm heading over myself!

And, of course, you can win a signed copy of Kimberley's book right here! For this week's contest, we will be selecting our winner from our pool of followers, so if you haven't yet signed on, don't wait another second to do so. See the sidebar on the left!

Kimberley has been busy this month celebrating her launching, and you might have caught her at The King's English in Salt Lake. If you missed it, you can catch her on July 15th at the Los Lunas Library in Los Lunas, New Mexico, or in Albuquerque in August. You can email her for all necessary intel.

Please join Robin and I in giving Kimberley a big stadium wave! So happy for you! New books are joyous, unforgettable occasions and their impact on readers can continue for years to come.

Here's to The Healing Spell!

Mary Hershey