Max is Back!

One of our favorite characters from Picture Window Books Read-it! Readers is back. He's a little older and a little wiser, and he now stars with his friend Zoe in a new set of early chapter books. Keep your eyes open this summer for Max and Zoe!

Travel and Weather Woes

After the unseasonably warm weather we enjoyed here in Minnesota last week (50 degrees in February was cause for major celebration!), I was lulled into a sense of complacency. What a fool I was to think that winter might be starting to wind down. You’d think after two years in Minnesota I’d know better. Sadly, Mother Nature decided to remind me why she and I aren’t friends. This reminder came in the form of a major winter storm that dumped another foot of snow on us. Luckily for me, I was able to experience the storm in two time zones! I flew home to Michigan this past weekend and promptly got stuck there when the storm caused my return flight Monday morning to be canceled. I’m a good traveler under normal circumstances, but I’ll cop to stressing somewhat easily. So when I arrived at the airport Tuesday morning for my rescheduled flight to discover a security-breach alarm going off and an unmoving security line, I’ll admit I hit the panic button a bit. (The series of panicked texts to my managing editor are proof of this.) Forty minutes — and zero people through security — later, I was in full-on stress mode. Thankfully, airline delays finally paid off for me, and my departure time was pushed back ten minutes. I managed to clear security with five minutes to spare. One epic sprint to my gate later, and I’d made it. I collapsed into the first empty seat on the plane and promptly breathed a sigh of relief.

Luckily I’m back now and into the end-of-season crunch. Here’s hoping the rest of you are enjoying warmer weather (and sending some our way)!

Makes a mom proud!

Everyone needs a bedtime story!

Books and language and family

When my granddad's house suffered a huge fire in 2008, one of the first things my family and I worried about—after we were sure Granddad was fine—was all of the books. Granddad's house had thousands of books. Old ones. Books that smelled old and felt old. All of us spent hours paging through them—I remember reading Little Women for the first time there. I also remember having the Sesame Street book The Monster At the End of This Book read to me there. There is a photo on Facebook of one bookshelf completely blackened and destroyed after the fire. But some books made it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Granddad's assisted living apartment and helped my dad and aunt box up the books that survived the fire. There are a ton of great ones—volumes of Shakespeare, lots of English poetry. Granddad was moving to the nursing home, so the books are being stored at my parents' house until the grandchildren can divide them up.

Granddad died on Monday night, peacefully, with my dad by his side. Not every child has what I always took for granted—houses full of books and people always willing to read out loud. Granddad will be missed. But his love of language and books and most of all, family, lives on.

Katie Woo hopes you have a very Happy Valentine's Day!

To find out what happens to Katie on this special day, check out No Valentine's for Katie from our Picture Window imprint. It is the perfect story to read with your valentine!