4.16.2019: Wee wee wee! WOLF is here!

April 16, 2019 Anica Rissi

Watch Out for Wolf picture book and flowers.png

This little piggy is excited: My new picture book is out today! Watch Out for Wolf! is my collaboration with illustrator Charles Santoso. Here’s what it’s about:

Piggle, Piggleton, Piggit, Piggums, and Pigbert are throwing a party and there is so much to do—but SHHH—watch out for Wolf!

I had a lot of fun writing this story about five excitable little pigs and their ambitious party plans (and Wolf, who might ruin everything). And I had even more fun seeing the humor and depth (and the game of seek-and-find) Charles Santoso’s fabulous illustrations bring to the tale.

To purchase a copy of Watch Out for Wolf! please follow one of these links, or request it at your local bookstore or library. Thank you!

Here’s how Rooga reacted when my author copies arrived:

Watch out for Wolf! author copies arrival.png

I look forward to signing books and meeting readers at festivals and library events in Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Maine over the next few months. If you live in or near a town I’m visiting, I’d love to see you there. For more information, please visit my events page.

Anica Mrose Rissi spring & summer 2019 events.JPG

Wee wee wee!

3.16.18: Love, Sophia on the Moon

March 16, 2018 Anica Rissi

New book news!

I'm over the moon to share this news about my third(!) picture book. Love, Sophia on the Moon is an epistolary story near and dear to my heart, and I'm thrilled to be creating it with the talented Mika Song (if you're not already familiar with Mika's amazing illustrations, please check out the cuteness on her website), super editrix Rotem Moscovich, and the whole wonderful team at Disney-Hyperion.

There's lots of mischief and make-believe in this one, and some tugging at heart strings too. I hope you'll like it.

Here's the official announcement* from Publishers Weekly (plus a photo I took of a balloon last week in Tampa after AWP):

Love Sophia on the Moon Rissi announcement.JPG

Love, Sophia on the Moon doesn't come out until summer 2020, but I have three new books coming out this year to tide you over in the meantime, and all of them are available for pre-order now:

Anna, Banana, and the Recipe for Disaster (#6) comes out March 20 (next week!) in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. It contains baking disasters, friendship messes, snickerdoodle secrets, and, of course, a cute dog.

Always Forever Maybe, my YA debut, releases on June 5 in hardcover, ebook, and audio. I am really excited for you to read this one. I spent six years working on it, and it makes me nervous and giddy just thinking about it being real. It's about obsessive love, toxic masculinity, enduring friendship, and the risks we take with our hearts.

Anna, Banana, and the Sleepover Secret (#7) comes out October 2 in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. Cover reveal coming soon! This one includes a sleepover and many secrets (of course), not to mention Truth or Dare surprises and an enormous cat named Mewsic.

Click on any of the above titles for further information, including pre-order links. Thanks for your interest and support!

(*Photo text: Rotem Moscovich at Disney-Hyperion has bought Love, Sophia on the Moon, a picture book by Anica Mrose Rissi, author of the Anna, Banana series and The Teacher's Pet. In the story, Sophia writes letters threatening to run away to "the moon" to avoid being in trouble on Earth, and her mother writes back. Tea with Oliver author-illustrator Mika Song will illustrate; publication is set for 2020. Meredith Kaffel Simonoff at DeFiore and Company represented the author, and Erica Rand Silverman at Stimola Literary Studio represented the artist.)

1.13.2018: Picture-Book Revision Tips

January 13, 2018 Anica Rissi

From Promising to Polished

I wrote a piece for the January 2018 issue of The Writer magazine (out now!) about how to revise a picture-book manuscript. In it, I share my best tips, tricks, questions, and approaches to keep in mind as you play and experiment with your draft. To read a PDF of the article, click here.

Speaking of picture books, this week I got to see early sketches for Watch Out for Wolf!, my 2019 picture book with Charles Santoso, and I squealed louder than Pigbert—or Piggle, Piggleton, Piggit, or Piggums, for that matter. I can't wait for you to meet all five little piggies (and Wolf, of course) when the book comes out next April. As soon as I'm allowed to share a peek of the cover and interiors, I will. (If you'd like to add the book on Goodreads, you'll find it here.)

In the meantime, I'm finishing up revisions on Anna, Banana, and the Sleepover Secret (book seven in the series, coming in October), drafting what I hope will be my next YA novel, and trying to contain my nerves and excitement as advance reader copies of Always Forever Maybe make their way into the hands of booksellers and reviewers. Some fun news: In addition to the hardcover and ebook editions coming in June, HarperCollins will also publish Always Forever Maybe as an audiobook! (Available for pre-order now, wherever you like to purchase books.) Huge thanks to the B&N Teen blog for including Always Forever Maybe on their list 21 of Our Most Anticipated Debuts of 2018. They said: "This is a story about first love, sweet until it turns bitter....Rissi has a deft touch on a heavy topic, addressing abuse while still managing to infuse this meaty debut with romance, real #BFF goals, and dashes of humor."

And here are some photos of my dog with her new teddy bear.

11.15.2017: Free Books for Schools in Need

November 15, 2017 Anica Rissi

UPDATE (11.19.2017): Thanks to all of you who helped spread the word about these donations! The response has been overwhelming--I've already promised to send far more books than I originally budgeted to buy. I am going to fill all requests that have already come in (approximately 900 books), but unfortunately now I need to start turning new requests down. If you'd like to be among the first to know about future giveaways and other book news, please sign up for my newsletter (see sidebar).

This fall, I'm hoping to donate copies of the Anna, Banana chapter books and my picture book The Teacher's Pet to high-poverty public elementary schools* (meaning either Title I or schools where more than 70% of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals). If that's your school, please be in touch! And if you know of a school in need, please encourage a teacher, librarian, or administrator there to reach out to me. My email is anicamroserissi at gmail dot com.

In the final weeks of 2016, I sent more than four hundred books to schools in twenty-three states. I hope to donate even more books this year.

If you're inclined to share this post to help spread the word, please do. You'll also find the below graphic in shareable form on my Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter accounts. Thank you!

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*U.S. schools only, due to shipping costs. Giveaway ends December 15, 2017.

The Anna, Banana chapter books are best for students in grades 1-4. For more information about the series, please click here. The Teacher's Pet, illustrated by Zachariah OHora, is best for students in Pre-K through graduate school. For more information about the book, including reviews and a peek inside, please click here.

8.31.2017: Extra, Extra! Read All About It

August 31, 2017 Anica Rissi

It was an author dream come true to see The Teacher's Pet recommended in the New York Times last weekend, along with four other fun back-to-school picture books. If you missed the review, here it is:

Meanwhile, my dog, Arugula, was delighted to find herself on the cover of the the Princeton Echo. Dan Bauer wrote a lovely profile on us (and my books) for the September issue, which you can read online here.

If you'd like to see me in person, rather than in print, please come to one of my many September events. I will be doing a The Teacher's Pet story time and launch party (with prosecco, homemade cookies, and cheese!) at Community Bookstore in Park Slope, Brooklyn on Sunday, September 10th, at 11am. On Saturday, September 16th, you'll find me on the Picture Book Stage at the Brooklyn Book Festival Children's Day at 11:30am, and at the Back to School Picture Book Bonanza (together with many other picture-book creators!) at Books of Wonder from 1-3pm. I'll be at the Princeton Children's Book Festival in Princeton, NJ, on Saturday, September 23rd, and the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA, this coming weekend (see my schedule, below). For more details on any of these events (and more coming up!), please visit the public events page of my website.

Happy back to school, happy start of fall, and happy reading!

6.20.2017: GULP! The Teacher's Pet is here!

June 20, 2017 Anica Rissi

*On the day the science project hatched, our whole class was amazed. We'd never seen Mr. Stricter so excited. "I always wanted a pet," he said.*

My first picture book, The Teacher's Pet, goes out into the world today! It's about a teacher who is so enamored of the new class pet, he can't see all the trouble it's causing. I had a lot of fun writing this silly, semi-autobiographical tale...and even more fun seeing how illustrator Zachariah OHora brought the story to life, telling a visual story that surprised (and delighted) even me.

(For those who don't know: Picture book writers and illustrators work separately for most of the process, and writers don't prescribe what should happen in the art. Instead, we try to leave lots of room in the text for illustrators to play, invent, and imagine new facets to the story--and that's where the magic happens.)

The book has been named one of The Best Children's and YA Books of June 2017 by Brightly, and one of the Best New Picture Books of June 2017 by The Children's Book Review.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote, "Rissi's very funny text is a model of understatement and restraint...allowing OHora to make the most of the story's physical comedy in thickly painted scenes spiked with neon orange. Mr. Stricter is a classic bumbler cut from Amelia Bedelia's cloth, and readers will hope that his class has more oddball tales in store."

Bookseller Todd Wellman selected The Teacher's Pet as a staff pick at Boswell Book Company, saying, "It's lovely to recommend a truly laugh-out-loud picture book in which the illustrations and text flatter each other so well. Rissi and OHora have devised a story that the reader will gleefully suspend disbelief for. Mr. Stricter has introduced a class pet, but it grows and grows into something unexpected that he loves but the students realize requires a different sort of compassion. All members of a classroom are shown to be contributors to the educational experience as the kids problem-solve and help their educational environment be successful."

I will be doing several book festival, library, and bookstore events in the next few months, including in Michigan, Maine, Georgia, New York, and New Jersey. If you're interested in coming to a The Teacher's Pet story time, I would love to see you there! Please visit my events page for more details.

The Teacher's Pet bookmarks and stickers for event attendees — *The Teacher's Pet* bookmarks and stickers for event attendees

6.6.2017: Watch Out for Wolf!

June 6, 2017 Anica Rissi

Picture-book news:

I'm the luckiest duck to get to work with editrix Rotem Moscovich and illustrator Charles Santoso (if you don't already know his work, check out the wonderful Ida, Always by Caron Levis and I Don't Like Koala by Sean Ferrell) on a new picture book featuring five little piggies and one very big surprise. Hey, piggies: Watch Out for Wolf!

Here's the announcement from Publishers Weekly:

Pre-order links won't be up for a while, but if you'd like to add the book on Goodreads, please click here.

Meanwhile, my first picture book, The Teacher's Pet, illustrated by Zachariah OHora, comes out in two weeks. It recently received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was named one of the Best Children's and YA Books of June 2017 by the editors at Brightly. There's still time to pre-order a copy by following one of these links: B&N | Amazon | Indiebound | BAM | Target | iTunes | Indigo. I can't wait for you to meet Mr. Stricter, Bruno, and the clever kids who must save the day!