I read a number of blogs. Shocking, eh?

One is The Longstockings, a team blog of 8 children’s writers. One Longstocking (yes, as in Pippi Longstocking), is Lisa Graff, author of The Thing About Georgie. She’s doing a Blog Tour this week, i.e., she’s being interviewed on a different blog every day. It began with The Longstockings on Monday and continues in and around the kidlit blogosphere.

It’s a fun concept, a fun group of bloggers, a fun book, so I’m tagging along. After the interview on Monday, there was a notice that HarperCollins (publisher of the book) is giving away 3 copies of The Thing About Georgie every day during the tour. To enter the giveaway, all I had to do was send an email with my name and address and the name of the blog where I read the interview. So I entered.

I won! HarperCollins is sending me my very own copy of The Thing About Georgie. Yay! Lucky me!

Now here’s a little-known fact about me and Pippi Longstocking, something the Longstockings don’t know, something Astrid Lindgren doesn’t know, something HarperCollins doesn’t know, and something my parents probably don’t remember: I wrote a Pippi Longstocking book. It’s true. I have proof.

This is the cover and title page of my Pippi Longstocking book. It was my first book, bound and printed by Mrs. Bannister. Talk about eye-catching! Now who wouldn’t pick that up off a shelf for a closer look?

Now there’s a hook! Riveting, no?

I don’t want to give you a picture of the last page because it gives away too much of the ending, and I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who might want to read it someday. However, the last line is pretty clever:

“Then it was time to go home so they did.”

What can I say? I was born to be a writer.