Please check out Kim Bevill's series on Gray Matters and Brain Basics. Kim is an expert when it comes to gender differences and teaching. A classroom teacher, now speaker and organizer of speakers, her website is worth checking out!
This picture reminded me of a cage match of wrestling squirrels!
The trap was open for about an hour when it snapped shut. I went to the backyard to see my new captive and there it was... a pretty little robin. I opened the door and it hopped out, turned as if to say, "THANKS" and flew away! Pretty cool, eh?
Recently I was interviewed for an online site that I felt had some relevance. I have been working on a book about teachers for teachers for some time now and somewhat casually brought up my sixth grade teacher (I am using his influence in book 4 of the Go Ask Mom series). Teachers can have an awesome impact, negative and positive, sometimes both. This particular teacher did in my life.
If you had a teacher who influenced you in a way that has shaped a bit of your life, send him or her a letter. Particularly the good ones. They love the encouragement of knowing they had a place of impact... I should know, I let my middle school social studies teacher know and a wonderful story came out of it (stay tuned) and I should further know because I used to listen to my parents (both teachers) talking about the students who "came back" to let them know what they had done to influence them. Also, I am married to a teacher and at the end of this past school year she had a small stream of high school students in her middle school classroom who came back to let her know they still thought of her. It makes a big difference!
Last night, while working at my desk (pushed up to a window in my office)and writing about two boys in my Go Ask Mom series, lying on their backs talking about what they see in the clouds, I looked out to see this awesome sunset tinged cloud. I saw a face, do you?
After days and days of rain and the trap being out of commission, I was working in the garage, set the trap outside with NO bait...WHAM! COMES FROM THE BACK YARD--- Curious George Gets A New Home!
http://bbltwt.com/73ho5 Tomorrow, FRIDAY June 5 is National Doughnut Day! Now, I think there must be a big doughnut lobby in Washington for them to get their own day. Some people will be rolling in the dough... heh heh... CORNY, eh?To celebrate I am bringing the REAL DOUGHNUT DEAL to your attention; Arnie The Doughnut! by my friend Laurie Keller. This is quite possibly the funniest picture book out there. Premise peculiar, execution, SPOT ON!!! My favorite picture book!! Krispy Kremehttp://krispykreme.com is offering you a free glazed on Friday, just pop in and pop one of those delicious donuts (how they spell it, though there are two actual spellings for such a simple treat) in to your mouth. Laurie Keller once watched one of those glazed going through the process of becoming a doughnut and that is where the idea for Arnie was born. I will tell you my six year old twin nephews LOVE this book.
My wife's middle school students LOVE this book. Teachers, librarians, adult humans LOVE this book as much as any kid and that is the true test of a HIGH QUALITY read. When asked to read the same book for the hundredth time (come on, we all dread it) this is one of those books you will never mind revisiting over and over. There are so many asides that will crack you up! This is my promise to you. RUN don't walk to get this book. Here, I am making it easy on you, either google Arnie The Doughnut, Laurie Keller or: click---> http://www.amazon.com/Arnie-Doughnut-Laurie-Keller/dp/0805062831/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244134839&sr=8-1
Here is the deal: In every school during my visits while the students of Colorado were voting for the book to win, I literally asked them to vote for Arnie instead of my book. I did this for two reasons:
1. I know boys and they weren't about to vote for a book with GIRL in the title, oh no, not in elementary school and
2. I LOVE THIS BOOK AND WAS PROUD TO BE PUMMELED BY A DOUGHNUT.
It seems EVERY TIME I run, which is basically every day, I see the remnants of a careless dog owner's apathy or the actual deed in the making. It is amazing to me how many people use the PUBLIC trail system in my area and don't see the FREE pick up bags for THEIR dogs!
I mean, come on, do you really think it is going to EVAPORATE or more likely you think someone else should take care of it because YOU ARE ENTITLED!
I carry a bag with me for my dog so no HYPOCRITE here.
Today was the THIRD TIME just this spring that I had to spray off the bottom of my running shoes because of dog owners who don't care to share... THE PATH...
There was another doggone squirrel in the trap this morning.... There are starting to make me a slave to critter counting. I have retired the trap for the rest of the day...
Here is the amazing power of the internet: yesterday I twittered that I would donate 100 books to a charity for 2 tix to the Nuggets/Lakers playoff and within four hours I had two tix and the books will go to a good cause! My son and I are going to the Nuggets Playoff against the Lakers tonight! Thank you Terra! What a great time we will have! Nuggets are PURE GOLD, but what the heck is a Laker anyway?
Tootsie aka Batman Matott (named thus by my son) got the scent of a squirrel in the trap. SHE WENT NUTS! Then we spotted a mother robin, who swooped both Toots and me on the way to her nest on MY drainspout on MY house, but that did not stop her from swooping low to make sure we didn't get too close...
The Toots found a great place to take a nap. Yeah, easy for her. I am the squirrel's school bus, carting them to and fro, mostly fro...
Bob Ross, the old network television painter is the one pictured. It is amazing what you can find when you google... get it FRO???
This dude or dudette seems to be mooning me... MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 4 So, no kidding, when I let this dude or dudette go in the open space he or she sprinted toward a huge blue spruce and as my eyes followed him or her I saw that he or she was joining two other squirrels foraging beneath the tree for pine cones. With peanut butter and apple breath he or she joined them. Bet they are jealous.
Here is something that strikes me odd: everyone that has talked to me about my little squirrel relocation process (adults) have been perplexed that I would take the time to move them. I have heard very creative and brutal methods of dispatching them and I am curious to know what you, my reader thinks about this. Would you relocate or ahem... remove them? Is it a coincidence that this dude or dudette had a greeting party? Are they playing me? Spying on me? Setting a bigger trap for me?
Trivia Question: In my Go Ask Mom series, who is the villainess that gets her corn stomped down by Gabe and his friends?
LATE MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 5Now I am just plain lazy. I am putting a little peanut butter on a disposable plastic fork. No more bread for these critters! WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM???? WE BETTER HAVE A TON OF PEACHES THIS YEAR! I am supposed to be writing, not relocating varmints!!!!! By the way, is this interesting to anyone other than me? Is Critter Count something I should be blogging about? You tell me, but I will tell you that in book 4 of the Go Ask Mom you will see squirrels and bees... inspired by real life events! NOON NEWS: Squirrel # 6
Okay, I surrender. Wife says, "Well, you don't have to keep setting it!" I say, "But, if I don't think of the peaches..." Wife says, nothing, just an eye roll. I say, "You wanna go with me to let this one go?" Wife says, nothing again, death stare. I say, "Be back in a few..."
Well, after such an eventful critter catching day yesterday, I must say I was a bit disappointed that my quarter of a red apple attracted no one but a handful of small ants to the trap. I think a peanut or almond butter smear on it might bring some company. Just when I thought the morning would remain uneventful, a run, a quick trip to the gym and Starbucks and back for a session on my laptop with my new book I saw something I haven't seen before on the "trail"...
Amazing things you see in a pair of running shoes, itunes on the ipod, an Italian Greyhound at your side and a trusty little camera in your pocket... Coming back from a nice, spring run, I was nearing my house when something caught my eye. From a distance this looked like there was a canvas bag hanging in the tree. I am always on the lookout for something unique so I kept my eye on the prize. As I neared the "bag" it seemed to be moving and so I crept up into the neighbor's front yard to get a better look.
WOW! There must be a thousand bees there. They were diving in and buzzing out and swarming. It was cool because of the overnight rain so they were huddled in together to keep warm and didn't seem to mind me standing there at all. I wonder what the homeowner thought if they saw me through the window snapping pics of her front yard?
There's A Fly On My Toast! on CD if they 1. Send me their address by this Friday at noon to justin@justinmatott.com 2. Make a comment about one of my May blog post (yes another one) and 3. If at all possible tweet it to gain more followers of course.
(This includes anyone who starts to follow me as of today...) ahem, ladies and gentlemen, let them know...
Thank you to those of you who follow my silly blog and I hope you are enjoying it.
Okay, we are extending the contest with a bit of clarification. The winner of the contest will have his or her poem published in the fourth book in the series in the same format as one of these journal entries by the narrator of the series, Gabriel Peters. He is 10 1/2 years old in the fourth book and he and his friends have a GROSS ERIE STORE dare-off.
For the entire chapter read my earlier entry. For those of you who don't want to read the whole chapter, here is the segment specific to the GROSS OFF!
This is the passage that YOUR poem (if you win) will appear in:
(GABRIEL SPEAKING, 10 1/2 year old boy) We talked about staging a grocery store dare-off soon when we were up in the tree house last, but never decided on when. We called it a GROSS-RIE STORE DARE OFF since the ideas we had were so disgusting. The way it works is you would walk down the aisle and choose something the other guy had to eat AND he had to pay for it, but your turn was coming so you had to decide if you were going to be brutal which meant the next time you were in for it or if you just picked stuff that wasn’t so bad, but not what a normal person would choose. The rule of the game was that you had to eat every bite of the items chosen for you either until it was gone or until it made you puke. Everyone put their name in a hat, and one by one the names were pulled out and the person holding your name would be choosing your lunch. Andy and I always prayed we would get each other because we were best friends and would go easy on each other. We knew what the other liked and we would make combinations that might sound gross to some people but we knew each other well enough to know it would be okay. Like the time I made Andy eat beef jerky and marshmallows. He was supposed to smash them up together according to the game, but by the time he opened up his bags everyone was so focused on their own junk they didn’t even notice that he was eating them separately. That is the best part about being best friends, you know what your buddy likes most and Beef Jerky and Marshmallows were what Andy liked most. He picked fried chicken gizzards and wintergreen Certs for me. Butch started to complain because he also knew that I always got chicken gizzards when we went to Safeway, but eating them with Wintergreen Certs wasn’t something I did and the bad thing was Butch watched me like a hawk, so I had to mix them and it was pretty gross. But even so, Andy was doing me a favor by picking my favorites and then I didn’t feel like I had wasted my own money on junk I didn’t like. Sometimes you would choose something that was yummy like a Snickers bar, but then the person that was going to eat it had to wrap it in sauerkraut or dip it in pickle juice or something like that. Other Gross-rie dare-offs were; a loaf of white Wonderbread soaked in the juice of canned red beets until it was so soggy you had to eat it with a spoon and that was after you ate all the cold, yucky beets or three bananas smashed up and mixed with all of the little packets of stuff you got back by the deli, which would include hot, red peppers, salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, relish, hot sauce, sugar, creamer, salad dressing, mayonnaise and the worst thing ever made to eat by anyone; Miracle Whip.
So, remember, WRITE like a kid thinks.Short Verse with simple rhyme! And there will be 4 winners! Grand Prize and 3 runners up! Enter as often as you want and please invite to enter too (you can post their entries on your blog)
For the second day in a row on critter count (the trap has been out for two days) a squirrel has found his or her way to my peanut butter laden bread.
This dude or dudette is currently living in the same treed area as yesterday's so I hope they have found one another and don't form a gang to get back at me when I go to the gym in the morning (same parking lot).
This dude had a tendency more toward the superhero than the military!
Trivia question: From my book Go Ask Mom, which character becomes a vampire one night to scare a certain brother?
LATER THAT DAY!
Okay, now you have got to be kidding me! I literally pulled the trap out of my SUV and set it under the tree with NO BAIT. Mowed the lawn (in between cloud bursts) and showered. When I returned to my office that overlooks the garden area I heard a banging sound that was becoming all too familiar. Low and behold ANOTHER squirrel in the trap. That brings my tally for Summer 09 to 3 in two days. I think I am going to put a dab of spray paint on his or her tail and see if it is just the same one playing games with me... Figures I got the squirrel who is training for a marathon too and just loops around Highlands Ranch and back. He or she just wants me to give him or her a lift out to the park so he or she can run back, lazy dude or dudette!
Maybe I should do this as an occupation???
EVEN LATER THAT DAY!
Okay, this is ridiculous. The yard is teeming with activity and now this is in the trap?? Luckily this is just an open the trap and spring the lucky bird brain. And all for a quarter of an apple (tried new bait to be sporting).
This morning, after baiting my critter catcher last night with a crusty rye bread and peanut butter treat, I awakened to the absolute largest squirrel I have ever seen sitting in the trap giving me a bit of attitude. I loaded him or her up and relocated him or her to a lovely little treed area on the south edge of Highlands Ranch. "Daniel's Park, HERE I COME!" were the last words I heard him or her scream as he or she scrambled across the field toward a grove of scrub oak...
Trivia question: From my new book The World According to Gabe, which character dresses in military garb and is just a tad annoying with all his army talk?
Hi, I am a children's book author, writing for kids of all ages. I live in Colorado. I have set up this blog to try to be entertaining, informative and in communication with my readers. I hope to hear from many of you.
To reap the fruits of one's labor is a privilege that every gardener cherishes and others only dream of. Now, in this exquisitely rendered book, Justin Matott shares with us the bountiful pleasures that come at the end of the gardening season. For after the harvest, there may be dormancy for a time, but there is still beautiful life--and from it, nature's wisdom becomes our own. This is the sequel to My Garden Visits, my first published book. See complete reviews at amazon.com
My favorite!
Narrated by a dog named Jerry, this fun chapter book chronicles the lives of Mr. Murphy and Jerry the dog in a fun and adventurous set of tales all cloaked in the mystery of the town of Shadow.
SO fractured!
This "chapter book" fractured fairy tale will entertain both young and old. With numerous appearances by famous "guest" characters from The Three Little Pigs to THE BIG BAD WOLF, to Rapunzel and beyond, you will smile with memory and recognition of times gone by. Narrated by two slightly sarcastic "newscaster style commentators", this fractured fairy tale will be like none you have read. ENJOY!!
My first board book
Explore the senses as Benjamin visits the zoo, noticing what he sees, smells, tastes, hears and feels. Matott is venturing into the young world of board books. His first, Benjamin Bailey Goes to the Zoo is the first in a series of six books, with the very talented illustrator and designer Suzanne Staud. BENJAMIN BAILEY IS NOW AVAILABLE!
GRANDPA'S RULE!
When Did I Meet You Grandpa? is a celebration of Grandfathers. A delightful picture book companion to the best selling When Did I Meet You Grandma?. Sure to delight young and old alike!
GRANDMA'S RULE!
When Did I Meet You Grandma? is an endearing book about the relationship between a child and grandmother. Each page is wonderfully illustrated to depict a different set of grandma and child. All shapes and sizes of grandmothers, all ethnic backgrounds and all sorts of different interests are explored in this wondrous book. Included on the front page is a place for a picture of the special child or special grandmother to be adhered and the last page of the book is interactive with another place for a photo or drawing and questions to be filled out about the child's own grandma making the book complete with ALL grandmothers covered. This is a book which will be given to young and old alike!
Nominated for the 2007 Colorado Children's Book
Nominated for the 2008 Colorado Children's Book
Nominated by kids all over Colorado for the 2008 Colorado Book of the Year. One of Mr. Matott's favorite picture books won, ARNIE THE DOUGHNUT. Mr. Matott wonders why last year he was beaten by a prairie dog (Janet Stevens, THE GREAT FUZZ FRENZY beat When I Was A BOY... I DREAMED, but Mr. Matott really liked it too.) and this year he was beaten by a doughnut! HEH HEH or LOL!
My first funny poetry collection
There’s a Fly on My Toast! is the long awaited collaboration from the team that brought forth the award-winning and beloved Ol’ Lady Grizelda!
MISFITS/NERDS/GEEKS WILL RULE THE WORLD!
Joe is worried about the germs in his school which bothers our narrator, the custodian, and soon Joe will use his germophobia for good! Whimsically told in rhyme and verse and wonderfully illustrated, Drinking Fountain Joe is the story of an unusual sixth grade boy named Joe who is obsessed with the germs in his school. An oddball, Joe soon has the attention of the whole school including the principal in his effort to rid the school of germs and other pollutants. Teaming up with his best friend, a girl called simply Y, Joe sets out to cure the world of disease. While working Joe strokes his chin which is mysteriously covered by a beard. He makes the correlation between his "pollution solution" and the hair raising event and starts on a wonderful journey. Drinking Fountain Joe evokes the same sense of acceptance for unique people as Matott's previous imaginative and wonderful children's book OL' Lady Grizelda! At the end of the story is a hilarious glossary for the children to learn the meaning of some of the harder words, sure to bring a smile to learning!
Hanging out in San Diego with my boys
Surf's up dude!
WHERE IT ALL STARTED! My first published children's book
Ol' Lady Grizelda is a delightful picture book meant for "children" of all ages. It is the story (told in rhyme and verse) of that certain peculiar person that each of us had on our block. The one that all of the children speculated upon, that their house was haunted or that they were awful. One day a special young boy tiptoes down to Grizelda's house to see for himself what of the rumors are true. In doing so a wonderful relationship is born between them and the reader learns to draw one's own conclusions rather than listening to the general gossip about people.
MY VERY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK
Of all human creations, a garden comes nearest to heaven. In Justin Matott's garden, sweet peas, larkspur, peppermint, peas, corn, tomatoes, and a hundred other sweetly-scented and delicious things bloom and ripen daily -- gifts of earth's bounty.
A great book for Dad!
In these 24 mostly true Declarations of Independence, Justin Matott takes his readers into the mysterious world of friendship and discovery peculiar to all of us. Wry, funny, and often sobering, his stories center around the catalyst that forges friendships, diffuses differences, and inspires revelations. Matott's down to earth writing is a wellspring of ordinary, fleeting moments that result in newfound independence. Readers will smile and shake their heads in recognition.
Took some time off, but opened the trap after seeing three squirrels nonchalantly eating in my garden this morning.... Greener pastures soon guys and gals!
school year she had a small stream of high school students in her middle school classroom who came back to let her know they still thought of her. It makes a big difference!
After days and days of rain and the trap being out of commission, I was
working in the garage, set the trap outside with NO bait...WHAM! COMES FROM THE BACK YARD--- Curious George Gets A New Home!
To celebrate I am bringing the REAL DOUGHNUT DEAL to your attention; Arnie The Doughnut! by my friend Laurie Keller. This is quite possibly the funniest picture book out there. Premise peculiar, execution, SPOT ON!!! My favorite picture book!!
I will tell you my six year old twin nephews LOVE this book.
My wife's middle school students LOVE this book. Teachers, librarians, adult humans LOVE this book as much as any kid and that is the true test of a HIGH QUALITY read. When asked to read the same book for the hundredth time (come on, we all dread it) this is one of those books you will never mind revisiting over and over. There are so many asides that will crack you up! This is my promise to you. RUN don't walk to get this book. 
The Toots found a great place to take a nap. Yeah, easy for her. I am the squirrel's school bus, carting them to and fro, mostly fro...
odd: everyone that has talked to me about my little squirrel relocation process (adults) have been perplexed that I would take the time to move them. I have heard very creative and brutal methods of dispatching them and I am curious to know what you, my reader thinks about this. Would you relocate or ahem... remove them?
Is it a coincidence that this dude or dudette had a greeting party? Are they playing me? Spying on me? Setting a bigger trap for me?
It was cool because of the overnight rain so they were huddled in together to keep warm and didn't seem to mind me standing there at all. I wo
nder what the homeowner thought if they saw me through the window snapping pics of her front yard?
MORNING NEWS:
superhero than the military!
my office that overlooks the garden area I heard a banging sound that was becoming all too familiar. Low and behold ANOTHER squirrel in the trap. That brings my tally for Summer 09 to 3 in two days. I think I am going to put a dab of spray paint on his or her tail and see if it is just the same one playing games with me... Figures I got the squirrel who is training for a marathon too and just loops around H
ighlands Ranch and back. He or she just wants me to give him or her a lift out to the park so he or she can run back, lazy dude or dudette!
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