Temple University | Marie Lamba, author

GREEN GREEN – a new picture book by Marie and Baldev Lamba, for more info click here

Honeybees are dying off. One of the reasons? The use of herbicides, chemicals and pesticides. Honeybees play a vital role in pollinating fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Did you know that about a third of all food Americans eat is directly or indirectly derived from honeybees? Now imagine our world without them. Yikes! We need them, and now they need us! What can you do to help? Ditch those harsh chemicals!

Here’s an easy formula for a BEE FRIENDLY WEED SPRAY. You’ll help save the bees, you won’t have to worry about spraying gunk that will be dangerous for kids and pets, AND you’ll save a ton of money, too. Win win all around.

BEE FRIENDLY WEED SPRAY RECIPE:

Fill a spray bottle with…
1 gallon of vinegar
1 ounce of liquid dish soap

Some tips: This spray works best in full sun. Spray on a day without rain to let it take effect. You’ll see results almost immediately. When weeds die down, it’s a good opportunity to remove any extra soil or plant debris from sidewalk and walkway cracks that would encourage future weeds. Keep a spray bottle on hand to zap any weeds that come back.

How well does this work? Here’s my sidewalk’s BEFORE:

And just a few hours later:

And the next day… a great AFTER:

I just removed the dead vegetation. Best of all – no bees were harmed! No animals either. Please spread the word and share this post with others. You can Bee the solution!

Want your kids to think green? Then check out my new picture book GREEN GREEN: A COMMUNITY GARDENING STORY (Farrar Straus Giroux), which is available in stores and online wherever books are sold. For more info and for links to retailers, please click here. This book celebrates the joys of gardening, and includes ways kids can help the world be more GREEN GREEN. School Library Journal calls it, “An attractive read-aloud for beginning lessons on gardening.”

*Marie is co-author of the new picture book GREEN GREEN: A COMMUNITY GARDENING STORY and a Literary Agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency in New York City. To keep up with all her posts, subscribe to her site.

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Hi everyone! Okay, so you may know me as a Young Adult novelist and a Literary Agent, but today I’m excited to announce that I’m also now officially a Picture Book author!!!

My husband, Landscape Architect Baldev Lamba and I have penned a picture book text titled GREEN, GREEN, which focuses in community gardening in a city.

Here’s the deal announcement in Publisher’s Marketplace:

January 15, 2015

Children’s:
Picture book
Literary agent and Young Adult author Marie Lamba and landscape architect Baldev Lamba’s debut GREEN, GREEN, a celebration of community gardening that reveals how green land grows into a vibrant city, and how an unused lot is made green again, to be illustrated by Eisner Award nominee and HERE I AM illustrator Sonia Sanchez, to Susan Dobinick at Farrar, Straus Children’s, by Jennifer DeChiara at The Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency (NA).

Baldev and I have collaborated on many an article in the past, all centered on garden design elements, and our pieces have appeared in national magazines including Gardens & Landscapes, Garden Design Magazine, and Your Home. It’s been a while since we’ve worked together on a piece, and this is our very first picture book together. Baldev is associate professor of Landscape Architecture at Temple University, and owner of Lamba Associates, Inc, an award-winning Landscape Architecture firm. Among his wide range of past projects are a number of urban gardens, including, most recently, the PHS Pops-Up urban garden in Center City, Philadelphia that grabbed a lot of attention. He’s also designed a number of Temple’s award-winning exhibits at The Philadelphia Flower Show, including one titled “Metromorphosis,” so urban renewal and community gardening has been floating around in both of our brains for a while now.

And speaking of “for a while,” it’s wonderful to be turning my mind back toward picture book writing after so many years. It’s where I started out, going to college to study writing and fine art and trying a few picture books, then I found myself penning novels instead. Picture book writing feels like coming home creatively for me, somehow — and I’ve got a few more in the works right now. Fingers crossed!

Special thanks go to our wonderful editor Susan Dobinick, our amazing agent Jennifer De Chiara, and to Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers for believing in this manuscript.

I think they are shooting for publication in Spring 2016. I’m SO EXCITED, and can’t wait to see the gorgeous illustrations Sonia Sanchez will produce to pull this all together.