Katrina Tangen

Children’s Author

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Teacher’s Guide, Part 2

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I have a couple of new resources for educators!

Here’s a printable coloring sheet of one of my favorite COPY THAT, COPY CAT! spreads:

CopyCat_ColoringSheetDownload

And check out my guest post on Patricia Newman’s LitLinks blog. It includes the biomimicry song, two hands-on science activities about lift, and a language arts activity on how to be the good kind of copycat! The site is full of lots great STEM activities connected to children’s books,,

In case you missed it: Teacher’s Guide, Part 1. You can also find all of the educator resources on the Resources page.

CYBILS Finalist!!

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Wow, COPY THAT, COPY CAT is a finalist for the Cybils Awards!

The CYBILS are judged by book bloggers. They have a really extensive process; this article is really interesting. The finalists were announced January 1st, so that was a pretty awesome way to start the new year! The winner in each category will be announced February 14th.

Best of the Year Lists

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‘Tis the season for best of the year lists and holiday gift guides! On December 1st, COPY THAT, COPY CAT got to join in the fun.

First, it was named a Bookstagang Best Book of the Year! Bookstagang is a big group of picture book reviewers on Instagram. The judges read basically all of the children’s books for the year, so it’s a big honor!


On the same day, COPY THAT, COPY CAT appeared on Betsy Bird’s Great Board Books list! She’s a big time librarian blogger who does a series of best of the year lists—one for each day of December. I’ve read her blog for a long time, so I was very excited to discover Copy Cat there on the first day! (I may have squealed a bit.) And then I was shocked to find it on the second day’s list too, for Picture Book Readalouds!

Here’s Betsy’s review:

Given all that, I decided to google myself and discovered COPY CAT on a holiday gift guide by Reading Rockets! So that capped off a very exciting two days!

It’s a little funny that COPY THAT, COPY CAT is on so many board book lists. It’s technically a board book in form, but not in content. Real board books are shorter and designed for babies or toddlers. COPY CAT is a 32-page picture book designed for ages 4-8. It just happens to have thicker pages because of the die-cuts and flaps. It is sturdy enough for toddlers though, and we tried to make it work for a wide range of ages. It’s pretty cool that it’s getting recognition, since it would have been easy for it to fall between the cracks!

Best Book Launch Ever!

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I’m homebound by chronic illness, so I couldn’t have an in-person book launch for COPY THAT, COPY CAT!. Even a virtual launch was more than I could handle (although I still might attempt that at some point). So I just asked for chocolate chip cookies to celebrate. I joked my family should make them in the shape of cats—and then they actually did!

That was already enough to make a great book launch!

Then my mom came home with a rocket balloon to celebrate my “launch.” And that was enough for me to declare the world’s smallest book launch party a huge success!

And then the morning of my launch, I woke up to a living room full of decorations! I was soooo surprised! My mom stayed up all night working on them.


Later my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew came by for cat ears and cookies, to make it a real party. (The cat theme is especially fun since I’m also a “Kat”.)


I couldn’t have had a better book launch even if I was healthy enough to go to a hundred bookstores. I’m so grateful to my family for making it so special!!