Harold Was Here - #4

Harold and his purple crayon
take on
Goodnight Moon

(a loving spoof of the book by
Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd)
A note from Harold:

Goodnight air?
That's not a bedtime story.
It's a nightmare!

Harold Was Here - #3

Harold and his purple crayon
take on
Not a Stick

(a loving spoof of the book by Antoinette Portis)

A note from Harold:

Sometimes reality can taste sweeter
than the imagination.

Harold Was Here - #2

Harold and his purple crayon
take on
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

(a loving spoof of the book by Mo Willems)

A note from Harold:

Better yet,
just don't let him out of your sight!

Harold Was Here - #1

Harold and his purple crayon
take on
No, David!

(a loving spoof of the book by David Shannon)

A note from Harold:

If you want to mimic me,
at least wait until your mom's not home!

Asher Family Portraits

Photographs by
Marilyn Rivas Tate Photography

The Lithuanian Edition!

The Netherlands Edition!

Not Anonymously Yours

A few booksellers where I live recently informed me of a rumor that's been going around. Customers have been buying copies of the book Jay's Journal and insisting that I wrote it.

I can almost understand how this rumor kind of sounds real for a very brief moment.

• My name is Jay.
• Jay's Journal is written by Anonymous, which is often shelved right beside Asher.
• Thirteen Reasons Why is about cassette tapes recorded by someone who committed suicide, and Jay's Journal is a real journal (though highly altered) written by someone who committed suicide.

[from the back of Jay's Journal]
Jay thought he could handle anything. The first time he took drugs was for fun. But what started as an escape quickly spiraled into a haze of addiction. That was just the beginning of the dangerous path that ultimately led Jay to take his own life.

Here's the thing...

• Jay's Journal was published when I was three years old.
• If I ever do write something anonymously and try to pass it off as a real journal, I probably won't name the main character after myself.

But what really has me confused is that people are arguing with the booksellers, swearing that I wrote this book and that it's a true story.

One, I've never done any drugs. And two...I didn't kill myself.

I swear!

But sometimes, as Hannah Baker says, you can't disprove a rumor. So this bookstore ordered extra copies of Jay's Journal to keep up with the demand.

Maybe I should autograph the books and really freak people out!

Ellory and the Whiteboard

When I was in 7th grade, I created a stopmotion clay animation film about a magician for an art class project. I remember being very happy with the outcome, and when I find that film I'll convert it to digital and share it with all of you. But my nephew, who's in 6th grade, just blew my animation out of the water.

Harold can have his purple crayon. If you give Ellory a whiteboard and a few markers, you get this: