As the year winds down, there's nothing like a nice jolt of editor excitement to keep things interesting—and that's what happened with Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten? author Audrey Vernick's newest picture book, Edgar's Second Word, over the last few days. Audrey's Clarion editor, Jennifer Greene (who is already hard at work on her nonfiction picture book Brothers at Bat, which will debut in spring 2012, illustrated by Steven Salerno, and on her debut novel, Water Balloon), fell in love with Edgar, whose first word is an emphatic and repeated "NO!", and his big sister Hazel, who just wants a brother who will share her passion for books and stories, and so we end the year knowing one more book will be hitting shelves soon.

Incidentally, Audrey's sequel to Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?, Teach Your Buffalo to Play Drums, now has some sample pages available for viewing on the HarperCollins online catalog (click on the "extras" tab and scroll down to links to additional spreads), and there's a giveaway going on at Goodreads for a couple of advance copies!

Congratulations, Audrey, and happy holidays!

—Erin