The Best Way to Start a New Year

Tip of the Day: Follow Lisa's Dream Big 2010 event, 26 fabulous authors for kids and teens writing on the theme "Dream Big".

Happy New Year! We're starting the year in the best possible way at Author2Author--with a BOOK LAUNCH!

Congratulations Lisa Schroeder on tomorrow's launch of CHASING BROOKLYN!

CHASING BROOKLYN is a novel in verse about Brooklyn and Nico, two teens haunted by the ghosts of people they care about deeply. Brooklyn and Nico's lives collide even as they hold back from each other the nightmare of being literally haunted by a ghost. Will they reach out to each other in time to save themselves?

Look, I'm not a huge believer in ghosts but I can't discount them either. I think that actually being haunted would be a nightmare and not fun at all. I'd like to convince myself that ghosts don't exist, except for something that happened to me.

After my daughter was born, her colic kicked in and I was very sleep deprived. My husband worked at night, and one night, I was finally collapsed from exhaustion in my bed, my daughter in her bassinet by my side. The room was dark. I woke up startled, but my daughter was still asleep; she hadn't disturbed me. Then the bedroom door pushed open and I heard someone walk across the carpet to her bassinet. Only nobody was there.

I freaked out and turned on the lights. I studied the carpet for footprints. Nothing. The presence was gone but I knew in my heart that it had been my father come to see his only grandchild. I didn't know my father. He left us when I was in preschool and died when I was in college. So I was NOT happy that he had come to haunt me and I was afraid he had bad intentions. I mean, not to sound melodramatic, but I was delirious from lack of sleep and there had been a ghost hovering over my baby, a freaking actual ghost of someone who hadn't been a good person in real life, and I doubted he was now a guardian angel. Maybe a demon in disguise come to snatch her up? I was terrified.

Maybe I misjudged a guardian spirit. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. Maybe. The presence felt very wrong to me is all I know. Instinct made me hug my daughter close and keep the lights on for a week.

I'm pretty sure I imagined the whole thing. There aren't any ghosts, right?

Anyway, my loving husband who no longer works nights preordered me CHASING BROOKLYN for Christmas, so I'll read it with the lights on. While he's home.

-- Kate, Miss Perfecting the Pages