Cover Reveal for A Rambler Steals Home by Carter Higgins

Posted by Mr. Schu February 21, 2016

Cover Reveal for A Rambler Steals Home by Carter Higgins

Thanks to Twitter, I know I communicated with Carter Higgins for the first time on November 13, 2011.

@MrSchuReads @CarterHiggins I am sitting on the floor reading picture books right now @vromans It feels like home
— Alyson Beecher (@alybee930) November 14, 2011

I love that 1,564 days later, Carter Higgins is making her first appearance on Watch. Connect. Read. to finish my sentences and reveal the cover for her debut novel, A Rambler Steals Home.

We chatted about Brandon Dorman, Derby Christmas Clark (Doesn't her name roll so nicely off the tongue?), school libraries, and reading. I wrote the words in purple, and she wrote the words in black. Thank you, Carter! I'm so HAPPY for you and your future readers.

Brandon Dorman's cover illustration for A Rambler Steals Home captures a place and a person and a sense of time in such a beautiful way. Derby is halfway in right field and halfway left out in the weeds. And isn't that what being 11-years-old is like? I also love that she has a hair tie on her wrist and a look of determination on her face. She's got some things to do.

Derby Christmas Clark is a girl with grit wrapped around a big, soft heart, and she has a way of winning over the even the toughest of souls.

Check out Carter's blog.

Did you know Ridge Creek was named after my elementary school? I wrote this book from a place of homesickness, and it made a lot of heart-sense to bring a real piece of home into its setting. It's also the small town known for its minor league baseball team, the Ridge Creek Rockskippers.

School libraries are another kind of home.

Author-illustrator Brian Won interviewed Carter.

Reading is opening the windows of that new kind of home and letting all the sunshine in. And if you're lucky, a whole bunch of new friends will bounce right in with the sunshine.

Mr. Schu, you should have asked me what's good to eat at Garland's Grill! It's the sweet potato fries. (Or maybe if you can come visit my school library sometime as the Ambassador. The answer is yes!)

Thank you! :)

Carter Higgins is an elementary school librarian, book blogger, and former graphic designer. A Rambler Steals Home is her debut novel. She lives in Burbank, California.