Huge News! I Sold a Book! You Can Learn How to CODE a Sandcastle!

I’ve got incredible news to share! I sold a book called How To Code a Sandcastle to Viking/Penguin! Just announced via Publisher’s Weekly:

“As part of Penguin’s partnership with Girls Who Code, Kendra Levin and Leila Sales at Viking have bought Josh Funk’s picture book, HOW TO CODE A SANDCASTLE, about a young girl and her trusty robot who use fundamental coding concepts to construct the perfect beach day, a fun, quirky story that brings coding to life, in a two-book deal, to be illustrated by Sara Palacios. Publication is set for Summer 2018.”

Yes! This is a Picture Book AND it’s about coding – sequences, loops, conditionals, etc!

I am thrilled on so many levels to share this book!

1. Have you heard of Girls Who Code? Girls Who Code was founded by Reshma Saujani with the mission to close the gender gap in technology. Girls Who Code has grown to over 40,000 girls in all 50 states through their coding clubs and programs. I couldn’t be more excited to join in Penguin’s Girl Who Code partnership! Check out the awesome books they have coming starting on August 22nd, 2017
   

   

   and more going forward.

   

   

   
2. I get to reunite with my editor and publisher of Dear Dragon at Viking/Penguin! Everyone over at Viking/Penguin – editorial, art and design, marketing, publicity, sales, and especially School & Library Marketing – were fantastic to work with! I can’t wait to team up with all of them again!
3. Sara Palacios’s illustrations are amazing! Check out her art here, all of her books here, definitely follow her on Instagram here, and she’s even got a book coming out with Young People’s Poet Laureate Margarite Engle(!!!) called The Flying Girl: How Aida de Acosta Learned to Soar in March 2018!I feel incredibly fortunate that Viking/Penguin paired us together on this project!
4. We certainly hope to make this a series! It’s my first two-book deal (which is awesome in itself) and I’m working on the follow-up right now!
5. If you didn’t know, I spend my days coding (I’m a software engineer by trade), so I’m thrilled to be combining my two areas of interest by bringing coding to the world of Children’s Literature.

I’ll stop there for now, as I’m sure I’ll be talking a lot about this book going forward – it’s only a YEAR away from release!

And as always, thanks, Kat, for making this happen!

Where I’ll Be Next

• Thursday, July 27th at 6:30pm: Burlington Public Library, 22 Sears Street, Burlington, MA, US
• Tuesday, August 1st at 6:30pm: Sharon Public Library, 11 N Main St, Sharon, MA, USA

• Tuesday, August 8th at 7:30pm: Rhyme Craft Chat at The Writers’ Loft, 20 North Main Street, Sherborn, MA, USA

Two for You

(two books I recommend you read)

1. Can An Aardvark Bark? written by Melissa Stewart & illustrated by Steve Jenkins

2. Martí’s Song for Freedom/ Martí y sus versos por la libertad written by Emma Otheguy & illustrated by Beatriz Vidal