Regular readers:

The press release will go out after the Holiday weekend, but I wanted to let you know first. I am thrilled that this summer, I will be working with my close friend and dear collaborator Andi Buchanan on a new book: The Daring Book for Girls!

Here's the official announcement. You heard it here first.

***
Collins Inks Deal For A Book That Gives Girls Their Turn

New York, NY (May 29, 2007)— Collins, the imprint of HarperCollins that published The New York Times bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys, today announced it has signed a book for every girl with an independent spirit and nose for trouble. The Daring Book For Girls by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz, to be published this fall, strictly follows a no-boys-allowed policy.

Among the contents:

*essential toolkit

*roller skating

*sports

*five karate moves every girl should know

*important women of the last century

*ghost stories, rainy day games

*poems for girls

*famous women spies

*how to make your own comic book

*camp fire songs

*stocks and bonds


And more!


"Amid all of the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys we would occasionally hear 'where is the Dangerous Book for Girls?" says Margot Schupf, Group SVP & Associate Publisher. "We are thrilled to be partnering with these authors to fill this obvious void in the marketplace and to encourage girls to find fun, adventure and learning in their lives as well,"

In addition to being the mother of an eight-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, Andrea Buchanan is the author of Mother Shock, co-founder of the online literary magazine LiteraryMama.com, and co-founder of MotherTalk, Inc., a media agency that connects writers with readers. Miriam Peskowitz is the mother of two girls, including an eight-year-old who climbs trees and leads spy missions in the backyard. Also a co-founder of MotherTalk, she is the author of The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, writes the blog EverydayMom, is an historian, and appears regularly on television and in print discussing parenting and women's issues.

Today I broke down, carved an hour (it turned out to be much more), and took my totally broken-down cell phone to the store to be, ahem, replaced. This, I suppose, is not the place for a rant about the terrors of telecommunications companies, and the horrid nexus of contracts, upgrade schedules and crazy ways that you end up paying huge amounts of hard-earned dollars for a replacement phone, say, if you've learned the hard way that today's free-when-you-start-service cellphones don't stand up to the combined rigors of baby slobber and a few well-intentioned and apologized-for drops on the floor.

The result is I now have what Samira refers to as a teenager phone. It's red. It can play music. it can do a million other things that I will never figure out, because I so don't have the time to read the book that came with it. I suppose the best thing I can do is find a teenager to explain it to me.

Do you know how I really feel? I feel old. I feel like with this cellphone upgrade I've finally reached the point of not caring about the new and cool things.

An email message from my daughter, to my husband, to be put in the category of "I can't believe I have a child who sends email messages, and from school." Wasn't she just in pre-K? Wasn't she just born?

Here goes:

Dear dad,

I, Sammo was on the "YouTube" website and found a bunch of trailers for Shrek the Third I thought you might like to see them. How to get to them:go to the internet search YouTube no space in between words. When you get to the website

go to where it says : Search. Then, type in "Shrek the Third."I LOVE you, SAMMO

We laughed particularly hard at her wonderful directions.