Please join me in congratulating my friend, the wonderful author Iain Lawrence. Not only does his brand new book The Winter Pony come out today, but last week, Iain was awarded the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature.

Isn’t this one of the greatest covers you’ve seen in a while? I love it! I haven’t read the book yet, but I hope to very soon. Iain stole borrowed my lovely beta reader, Kelly, to be his pony expert for this book. After that, whenever I would withhold pages of whatever I was working on from her because I wasn’t ready to share them, she used to say to me in a sing-songy voice, “Maybe I’ll just call my friend Iain and see if he needs anyone to read his latest project!”

Congratulations Iain! On both your release, and your much-deserved award. I can assure all of you reading this that Iain’s books are fabulous and you really need to get either to a library or a bookstore and check out his work!