Holiday Giveaway #4 - Otto Grows Down

Friday, December 11, 2009

Holiday Giveaway #4 - Otto Grows Down

So I hadn't planned on any more giveaways this holiday season (I though three was a pretty good number), but then I happened to get my hands on an extra copy of the fabulous picture book Otto Grows Down by Michael Sussman and illustrated by Scott Magoon, which would be a great gift for anyone with children in the family (or I won't tell if you decide to keep it, because um, hey picture books just make you feel warm and sparkly sometimes).

Otto has just one birthday wish: that his new baby sister Anna had never been born. And it comes true when the days suddenly start moving in reverse. But now, instead of growing up, Otto's growing DOWN. He's getting younger every minute and in danger of disappearing entirely. Can he turn things around before it's too late—for Anna and himself?

CONTEST

All you have to do is comment below and include your email address so I know how to contact you. Enter by midnight on December 20th. I'll send it out immediately on the 21st, and you should have it before Christmas.

Extra entries:

+1 New followers

+2 If you're already a follower

+1 Linking to my contest on your blog, twitter, etc. Include links. (up to 5)

+3 For posting about my contest on your blog. (Must be actual post)

+2 Add me to your blog roll

+3 for referring someone to the contest

+3 for being the person referred

11 comments:

Dee said...: I love this book!

+2 already a follower :); December 11, 2009 at 11:06 AM
brizmus said...: Looks fun!
+2 already a follower :-)
zedster.tbb(at)gmail(DOT)com; December 11, 2009 at 12:16 PM
Michelle (Red Headed Book Child) said...: +2 already a follower

+ 2 adding you to my blog roll

This book sounds interesting!

michwerm@gmail.com; December 11, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Boni Ashburn said...: This book is at the top of my To-Read list! I've been told I'll appreciate the humor :)

(+1 new follower); December 12, 2009 at 4:59 PM
Mardel said...: +2 follower
+1 linked to my sidebar ( http://mardel-rabidreader.blogspot.com/)

This book looks great. I would love to get it for my school library, we don't get enough good books - especially lately.; December 12, 2009 at 7:31 PM
Susie Sawyer said...: I'd love to win a copy! Congratulations on a job well done, Michael!

Susie Sawyer
www.susiesawyer.com
contact@susiesawyer.com; December 12, 2009 at 9:42 PM
g.g. said...: This looks like an adorable book...thanks for the chance to win it

anjamie4 at gmail DOT com; December 14, 2009 at 11:23 AM
g.g. said...: +2 am already a google friend connect follower

anjamie4 AT gmail dot com; December 14, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Erin said...: Ooh! I'd love to win a copy, especially for my oldest daughter who has probably wished (more than once!) that her baby sister never took up residence in our home. ;)

+1 I'm a new follower and added you to my google reader.
+3 I'm off to add a post to my blog illustratorerin.blogspot.com; December 14, 2009 at 2:09 PM
Esther said...: Funny book!

+1 New follower

eshchory[at]gmail[dot]com; December 15, 2009 at 2:35 AM
Nikki said...: Oh, I really want a copy of this one -- Michael is a wonderful, generous member of the writing community, and the book is a hoot!
So, put me in. Plus, you're on my blog roll. (Of course, you've been there for a few weeks, but I never entered anything. Does that count?)
+2, if it does.
Thanks, Suzie.; December 15, 2009 at 8:24 AM

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Five Random Things About Suzie

1. I drink so much orange soda, it's probably running through my veins. I've been known to go through a twelve pack of diet sunkist in a day.

2. I'm legitimately nocturnal (or a vampire). I will be so exhausted at two pm that I'm falling asleep standing up - it has happened before, at Six Flags no less - but as soon as the sun goes down I'm wide awake.

3. I have a gorgeous unused $6000 Reem Acra wedding dress hanging in my closet, and it showed up on my doorstep the same day my (now ex) fiance broke up with me. And thank God for that. I wouldn't have wanted to waste that dress on him.

4. Social anxiety plagues me daily. I write a script and practice in front of the mirror when I have to make a phone call, but most people who interact with me have no idea how nervous I am (or perhaps they lie) because I've worked so hard to try to overcome it.

5. I'm actually worried that I will never love my children (when I do have them in the far off future) as much as I love my dogs. I just like animals better than people - they're sweet and innocent and soft and furry - is that so wrong?

quotes

金不一定閃
流浪者不都迷路

"I dreamed you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane
I think I made you up inside my head
I fancied you'd return the way you said
But I grow old and I forget your name
I think I made you up inside my head" ~Silvia Plath, Mad Girl's Love Song

"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." ~ Robert Frost

"Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds." ~ William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116"

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning-...So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY

"For deadly secrets strike when understood
and lucky stars all exit on the run:
never try to knock on rotten wood,
never try to know more than you should." ~ Sylvia Plath, "Admonitions"

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become." ~ Milan Kundera, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

William Wilberforce: "No one of our age has ever taken power."
William Pitt Jr: "Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway."

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." ~ Mark Twain

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." ~ Mark Twain

“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace.” ~ Charles Dickens, A MUTUAL FRIEND

"I think the idea of life after death is a bad idea. It distracts you from appreciating the uniqueness of the here and now, the moment you are living." ~ Joseph Campbell

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear...Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end." ~ Alan Paton, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

"To laugh often and much.. to endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better... To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived, This is to have succeeded." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover or friend, I have changed in their eyes...[Some see it as] a mission, as if ...they can pull me back from the wreckage of that day. Of course, their best efforts are largely useless. No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved." ~ Alice Sebold, LUCKY

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared." ~Tupac, The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Confessions

Friday, December 11, 2009