My latest book for children, Construction Cat, was published by Simon and Schuster’s Margaret K. McElderry Books on Oct. 9, 2018. Mama Cat runs the construction site while Daddy stays home with the kittens. (Take that, stereotypes!) Adorable illustrations by Sydney Hanson! Available now. Click here to order.

Feeling awestruck over this bit of paper discovered in a box in my parents’ garage—and wishing I could give my mom a very big hug right now. How did she know the receipt from my very first skateboard would have so much meaning 45 years later? (And did she hide the receipt so I wouldn’t find out that it was my parents, not Santa, who got me that Hobie Super Surfer in 1972?)

THRILLED to report that Simon & Schuster’s prestigious Margaret K. McElderry Books will be publishing my latest book, CONSTRUCTION CAT, about a mama cat construction worker (dad stays home with the kittens). I haven’t found out yet who the illustrator will be for the project, but I’m sure my editor, S&S Vice President Karen Wojtyla, will choose a great one. S&S/McElderry is the publisher of my past two books, Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes The Trash! and A Crazy Day At The Critter Cafe, and it’s very exciting to add a third book to my list there!

After AARP produced a video on us that garnered a combined 4 million views on Facebook and YouTube, they decided it was time to follow up with a piece in AARP Magazine, which has the highest circulation of any magazine in the U.S. Here’s me, trying to look casual while skating with a broken wrist, with some of the Sisters of Shred. Cheering, from left: Stevie Jangard, Theresa McCabe, Amy Bradshaw, Tamra Bowman, Claudia Hoag and Eva Armanto (broken wrist under her cast).

I started skateboarding on Christmas Day, 1971, when Santa brought me the Hobie Super Surfer. Though equipped with treacherous clay wheels, the board itself was the coolest board of its time. …