#penguin random house

More Golden Book images.

More pieces from my Trolls Golden Book.

When someone asked me if I would be on a film about the Trolls dolls back in 2013, I said hell no! But now, I couldn’t be more proud.

One of my goals at PDI Dreamworks was to work with Kendal Cronkhite, the shining mother goddess of production designers. She would head up this project. I was still skeptical. It would take a lot of heavy lifting. I wanted to see animation incorporate a more sophisticated aesthetic, be as modern and relevant as fashion, interior and industrial design. I shared some art inspiration with Kendal, one of which was Amelie Flechais’ comics, Sayuri’s World, an incredible fiber installation artist, and Philip Vose’s grungy indie art. I was genuinely surprised when Kendal’s response was to run with it! I was stoked enough to work on a film I believe in. But it keeps getting better! I ended up hand building stop motion scrapbook sequences that weave in and out of the film. Stop motion at Dreamworks Animation? How unreal! That led to our studio’s first ever Little Golden Book and so much more. Can’t wait to share it all. Congrats to the entire team!  

Trolls comes out in theaters today! Go check it out, I dare you not to smile.

Ilustración de portada para Amanda Black 3: El Último Minuto, novela juvenil de Juan Gómez-Jurado y Bárbara Montes (Penguin Random House).

Ilustración de portada para Amanda Black 2: El Amuleto Perdido, novela juvenil de Juan Gómez-Jurado y Bárbara Montes (Penguin Random House).

The Farm 

by Joanne Ramos

At one day past my due date, I am currently in either the best or the worst position to review Joanne Ramos’ thought-provoking page-turner The Farm.

At the moment, the slightly-too-plausible premise of farming out pregnancies via pricey surrogacy does not seem so bad. Having endured morning sickness occurring all times of day that does not cease after 1st trimester, exhaustion tantamount to being hit repeatedly by a bus, never-ending constipation and pains in places I didn’t know existed, might I hire someone to trade places? Tell me where to VENMO.

And yet, in a way, this isn’t even what The Farm is about. The bookstore employee suggested it was like The Handmaid’s Tale, perhaps in an effort to warn my obviously gestating self that it might not be the best time to read it. In fact, it is only really like The Handmaid’s Tale in that there are pregnant women at its center.

It’s also not about the price of motherhood, the high-achieving women who are penalized at work for having children, nor about the fact that the US is the only developed country without paid maternity leave. These topics could have doubled the size of the book - and I would have gladly read more. 

WhatThe Farm is about is far more personal and insidious - a sort of collective history and culpability woven into the fabric of the American flag - Betsy Ross stitching in her trinity kitchen all the while going blind.

The story follows Jane, a young Fiipina mother, trying to survive in NY. Her cousin presents her with an opportunity: interview at Golden Oaks, a resort-style surrogate facility, where the wealthiest clients pay top dollar to outsource their pregnancies. The facility provides comprehensive nutrition, weekly prenatal massages, yoga, wellness tracking and …alpacas. There she meets Reagan and Lisa, two caucasian “hosts,” who pull her into their orbit. With the payouts for healthy babies so huge, each “host” has her own reasons for signing up for 10 (yes, look up how long pregnancy actually is) months of incarceration, so to speak.

In addition to a brilliantly-paced speculative fiction thriller, what starts to unfold is a social commentary about opportunity, access, immigration, and skin tone.  And by the end of the novel, as Jane marvels at her own brave smart daughter, I start to wonder about the American Dream - who has been duped and who is benefitting from doing the duping. We expect it to pay its dividends in one lifetime. Come “your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” not well,…three generations down the road. And when my own great-grandmother emigrated, gnawed family photo in hand, I wonder if she ever thought about three - and any day now, four - generations down the line, and where her sea voyage would lead.

And perhaps it’s not that the American Dream is dead - perhaps we just always thought it was free. What if it’s always been pricey? And the questions are: how much are you willing to sell?Andhow much are you willing to pay? 

Let the bidding begin.

Recursion 

by Blake Crouch

Could Blake Crouch please write more books so I can start a novel and then read until the wee hours of the morning every single night of my life?

For some reason, I keep on thinking, If Blake Crouch told me to jump off a bridge, I just might. Though it’d have nothing to do with peer pressure. I think I’d step off that bridge just because I wouldn’t be surprised if his concept of time, space and reality so far transcends mine that that small time continuum disturbance would save the world in some way. 

Crouch is simply a master sci-fi storyteller. Do you love slightly alternative worlds to ours? Check. Love near-plausible catastrophic worldwide scenarios? Check. Love books that blow your mind with their theories? Check.

Recursion starts with a world that is suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a seemingly isolated disease in which people experience “false memories” of a life they never lived while simultaneously living the life they do. This naturally causes many a psychotic break. Because what if you remembered a world where you had a spouse and child and rewarding job and suddenly find yourself single, childless and bankrupt?  

I almost don’t know how to write about Recursion because there comes a time while reading Crouch’s books where my meager astrophysical understanding of the world collides with reality to create a fissure through which I can peek into a distinct possibility that he is not the storyteller of a fictional tale, but rather a harbinger of a real impending doom.

I read Dark Matter in one sitting. I opened it at bedtime. I turned the last page before I fell asleep.  Recursion I savored over the course of a 24-hour period, though from self-control or fear for our precarious world, I cannot say which.

In some way, Blake Crouch writes the stuff of nightmares: science, power, playing God. The problem is: sometimes it’s hard to tell whether or not we’re awake.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

Should you eat chocolate cake? Maybe not. Is it extremely satisfying when you do? Of course. The Couple Next Door provides your sugar fix. Is it going to provide you nutrition? Probably not. But it is so satisfying you may just want another helping.  

I got this book as part of my Book of the Month trial last night. I finished it this afternoon. Need I say more? 

Quintessential suspense at its best, with all the twists and turns of a classic who-dun-it, The Couple Next Door profiles Anne and Marco, newbie parents who leave their infant sleeping at home while they attend a dinner party next door. Can you guess where this is going? I tried at several turns, but there was always another curve in the road. 

I did the classic “I’ll just finish this chapter” move, but then my eyes would start scanning the next page.  300 pages later…Lapena kept this taut novel pinging until the final sentence. Will there be a sequel? If so, I’ll definitely be reading it.   If not, she wrote a killer ending. 

Michelle Obama Surprises Children at Para Los Niños Early Education Center in Skid Row, in Partnership With Penguin Random House and First Book

Thank you, Michelle ObamaandPenguin Random House for supporting our mission and getting books to kids by donating 1 MILLION books!

Read about Mrs. Obama’s recent visit to Para Los Niños Early Education Center where she read to children from an underserved area of Los Angeles.

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Tseng, author of Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Library by Jennifer Tseng

1. My most vivid memory of my childhood library is of a karate demonstration on the lawn. It was California. The sun was shining and the grass was thick and one of the karate-choppers was a woman. I had never seen a woman doing karate before! I wanted to take lessons. My father said no immediately, citing the possibility that I might kill my sister as the reason he could never allow it.

2. Our father was very concerned about our survival. His own, my mother’s, my sister’s, and mine. I was forbidden to get my driver’s license (too many accidents!). We were given swim lessons to prevent drowning in the event that the boat we might someday purchase capsized. We were given CPR training. We learned the Heimlich maneuver. We sewed our own clothing and backpacks. We grew fruits and vegetables and lifted weights as a family at the University gym. We were issued library cards.

3. As part of our survival training our father brought us to the library at the University where he taught. He would bring us to the “curriculum” section which was designed for adults learning to be teachers of young children but functioned perfectly as a children’s library for us. Once a week we would exit the many-storied library carrying stacks of books that went up to our chins.

4. Our father related to the library, as many immigrants do, as an infinite and necessary resource.

The library was where he borrowed materials for his citizenship exam, conducted research for his dissertation, found books on how to fix the plumbing, how to grow fruits and vegetables, books for our German American mother on how to speak Chinese and cook Chinese food. The library was a place he left his children in the care of women who were not their mother. And all of it was free. It was imperative that we learn how to survive without money.

5. At home my sister and I brought our library books into the bedroom closet or up into the tree and assembled our own makeshift libraries. We read to each other or to ourselves in silence. We had brought distant worlds home with us and wanted to enter them as quickly and completely as possible.

6. An unforgettable service that our town library offered (perhaps yours has this too) was something called “Dial-a-Story.” You could call the number and a recorded voice would read you a story. How endlessly we dialed that number!  And how delighted we were when the story changed. I still remember the number: (805) 544-9899. Dial it, but don’t tell me if it’s out of service. In my mind, “Dial-a-Story” will always exist. It’s the perfect emblem of a library, an eternal place at the end of an invisible line, a place but also a person, a voice that tells stories, someone there waiting for you to lift the receiver and dial.

7. Like many children, my sister and I played library. We were especially enamored with the shapely, wood handled due date stamp we had seen the librarians use at the counter. We loved the sound of the book being stamped. The sound signaled the moment the book was about to be released to us, the moment the book would be marked as ours and we tried our best to replicate it at home.

8.During puberty my favorite library book was the illustrated Love and Sex and Growing Up (not popular topics in our household),a white cloth edition whose cover featured only the title in a large, all too legible pink font. It taught me everything. I checked it out repeatedly, blushing every time, but determined to have it again. To this day, the thought of handing it to the librarian still embarrasses me.

9. As a teenager in Boston, my husband was lucky enough to live in a place with world class libraries. He and his friends often wandered the streets up to no good. If it weren’t for the libraries, he said, they would have had no place to go.

10. As a student in California, there was a library he visited for its collection of records. He and his friends used the old records for sampling. He told me about a man in Brazil who has opened a public library devoted solely to records. The man has collected thousands and is still actively collecting. Many of the recordings  - Thai funk or Ethiopian jazz or Filipino disco - would have been lost without his library; they are last copies of music that hasn’t been digitized, music that would otherwise never have been heard again.

11. My mother started a library at her church. There isn’t enough room for library shelves so she keeps much of the collection at her house and a portion of the books on a rolling cart whose selection rotates. She chooses the books carefully. Unlike the church, the books are nondenominational, though all of them have something to do with God or spirituality or social change. In a conservative Catholic parish in a town of 5,000 the books are considered by some to be dangerous. Her little cart is quite controversial.

12. My own job working at a library changed when I began writing a novel set there. Before that my writing life had been solitary. Writing MAYUMI was a strangely collective, exhilarating experience. Going to work became a thrill. Daily I asked the librarians questions: How do people meet people on this island? If two people were going to have a secret affair where would they rendez-vous? If the main character were to sleep with a 17-year-old, would you hold it against her? Their answers changed the course of the book.

13. Mayumi on libraries:  “Then again, had the young man and I met on a train, I might have wished we had met in a library (One is doubly afloat in an island library, surrounded by water, surrounded by books.), in a sanctuary that never arrives late or suddenly, one that never departs slowly, only to disappear out of sight.  In its intimacy and safety, a library is the opposite of a train. It is that which remains, that which holds people (children are the exception here) while they are, for the most part, not in motion, that which holds people while they dream, while they resist travel even as they read of other worlds.”  

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
J. Todd Scott, The Far Empty

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Morgan Callan Rogers, author of Written on My Heart

I was in my mid-twenties when I returned to my hometown of Bath, Maine, after six months of living with my brother, who was stationed at a military base located in Norfolk, England. While the poppy-laden, bunny-infested countryside was beautiful and I had many adventures, my penultimate dream of marrying a British rock star went unrealized. It was time to make another plan.

In the local classifieds, I spied an ad for an assistant at the Patten Free Library and I applied. It sounded like a good fit. I loved books. I loved reading. I loved the library itself. Constructed of light brick, it featured a round castle-like tower at one end and overlooked the pretty city park.  

To my delight, I received a call for an interview, which was held in the dignified half-circular reading room, with its big comfortable chairs and a grandfather clock that ticked time away in a gracious, steadied manner. My interviewer was Barbara R. King, the library’s director.

I had heard about Barbara. She was ‘that new librarian’. She had come from ‘away’ and had really ‘shaken up the place’ with her notions of how a library should be operated. Before Barbara, the atmosphere in the library could best be described as dull. Generations of dusty decorum had settled over the place. But when Barbara was hired, that changed. She enlisted the artist Dahlov Ipcar, who lived in nearby Five Islands, to drench the children’s room walls with prancing African animals, set against a bright orange background. Barbara initiated programs for all ages, encouraged ideas and conversation, and brought a new level of enthusiasm.

She was one of those fierce, tiny women with the energy of a hummingbird in flight. She was here. She was there. She was everywhere. She changed many lives, including mine.

I remember the interview as painful, but not because of Barbara. She sat across from me—all eyes and encouragement. Our exchange was painful because of my shyness. I don’t remember the questions but I do remember my monosyllabic responses to anything she asked me. Why she hired me, I don’t know. But she did. Her faith in me, a dreamer with a half-hearted grip on reality, created a sea change in my awareness of what might be possible in my life.  

What an honor it was to be part of her team! She was a mentor, a mother, and an admonisher, if need be. My coworkers and I adored her even as we maintained a healthy respect for her rare bursts of temper. I loved going into work every day, surrounded by energy, allies, and books. I read constantly, becoming reacquainted with old friends and new friends on the pages of novels, biographies and nonfiction, do-it-yourself—anything that passed through my hands. A book lover working in a library is a bit like a chocoholic living in a chocolate factory; one can never get enough while at the same time one is overwhelmed by the availability of one’s addiction. It was a wonderful period in my life.

Barbara moved on after a while, to her own bookstore and then, out of Maine. I continued to work at the Patten Free Library, but the light had dimmed. I decided to move on, too. I applied to college with the intention of getting an English degree. Somehow, Barbara found out about my plan from far away and one day I received a note from her, along with a one hundred dollar check.

“College is expensive. I hope this helps,” her letter read. “I know you can do it.” 

And I did, thanks, in great part, to her. 

IT’S OFFICIAL!!! my debut graphic novel will be published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House! i’m incredibly excited to share Momo & PG’s origin story, and how their relationship blossoms. thank you everyone who helped make this dream become reality ❤️

University Book Store Presents Patricia Briggs with Special Guest Anne Bishop

Mated werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham must discover what could make an entire community disappear–before its too late–in Wild Sign, a thrilling new entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Alpha and Omega series. In the wilds of the Northern California mountains, all the inhabitants of a small town have gone missing. Its as if the people picked up and left their possessions behind. With a mystery on their hands and no jurisdiction on private property, the FBI dumps the whole problem in the lap of the land owner, Aspen Creek, Inc.–aka the business organization of the Marroks pack. Somehow, the pack of the Wolf Who Rules is connected to a group of vanished people. Werewolves Charles Cornick and Anna Latham are tasked with investigating, and soon find that a deserted town is the least of the challenges they face. Death sings in the forest, and when it calls, Charles and Anna must answer. Something has awakened in the heart of the California mountains, something old and dangerous–and it has met werewolves before.

Patricia Briggs is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series and the Alpha and Omega novels. http://www.patriciabriggs.com/

Did a cover illustration for Jenny Valentine’s book ‘Fire Color One’!
Penguin Random House US/Penguin Young Readers Group.
Cover design by Samira Iravani.

:-)

“Winner Takes All” a chapter book about the DC Super Hero Girls written by Erica David and Illustrated by me can now be pre-ordered here!

Wonder Woman has always been near and dear to my heart so I was incredibly excited to be asked to illustrate it! Thanks to the talented team at Cartoon Network for creating such fun Character Designs to play with!

Here’s a sneak peak at the cover!

Hello everyone ! April/May is a very busy time in book release :-) I will post more pictures of each book in the following weeks. Here are the dates :

►The Haunted Library 9 : February 21st (OK this one is actually VERY late)
►Maîtresse, appelle-moi Princesse ! : April 26th (Today !)
►La Famille Royale 3 : April 27th
►Hercule, Chat Policier 3 : May 3rd

Hi folks, tomorrow is the release of The Haunted Library book 7, “The Ghost In The Tree House” ! Here’s a sneak peek…

Hi folks! I forgot to make an announcement for the release of The Haunted Library book 6, back in November 2015. Here are some pics. Currently working on book 8…