Lowry Updates

City of Brotherly Love

I came scarily close to missing my flight to Philadelphia yesterday morning. The plane was scheduled to leave at 7:15 and so I had booked my car service (this is the one hugely extravagant thing in my life. I use a car service to and from the airport) to pick me up at 6 AM. Which it did, of course--they are always on time, unlike taxis, and always know what route to take (unlike taxis. These are the reasons why I use the car service, these plus the fact that I don't have to listen to the drivers' political views, or sit white-knuckled as they speed)

So. My driver dropped me at the airport at 6:20, and because I had forgotten to do so from my own computer, i had to get my US Airways boarding pass from a kiosk, and then it was 6:25. And that's when I discovered the line at security. MILES long.  I had not anticipated the number of families headed, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, to the Caribbean.  Gulp.  Having no other options that I could think of, I got in the line, which was interminable and apparently unmoving. I stood there, inching forward,  until it was 6:40---my plane was to start boarding at 6:45---and there were still zillions of people, most with strollers and golf clubs, ahead of me.

Then I thought of a possible solution---scary because it meant giving up my place in line, and by now there were a hundred people, at least, behind me.  But I thought I remembered that from the US Airways Shuttle to NY or DC , at the other end of the terminal, you could in fact get to the regular gates by a back route. So I scurried there, and indeed there were few people n the security line, because people aren't making business trips at 7 on a Saturday morning. Whew. I made my way through, and indeed found my way around to the regular gates, and got to my plane, which was, by then, half boarded, in time.

And now I am in Philadelphia. Last weekend at a hotel in Connecticut, I did what I always automatically do in a hotel room, which is to look at the little map of emergency exits on the back of the door. Last weekend was the first time I have actually been called upon to groggily remember that information, when I had to leave the hotel at 2 AM as the fire engines pulled up.

Here, I wonder why bother studying the map! I am on the 29th floor. It does make for a great view of the city:

Yesterday I signed books for 3 hours in the exhibition hall of the NCTE convention---saw a lot of acquaintances and friends, one of the best things about these conventions. David Weisner was signing next to me at one point. And Jerry Spinelli stopped by to say hi. (Both David and Jerry live in Philadelphia) Kathy Lasky and Jane Yolen---both of whom live in Massachusetts, as I do (Kathy within walking distance of my house!) Plus loads of others. And this morning I am about to meet David Bradley for brunch---David is the director of the theater which will produce "Gossamer" here in the spring.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Just an update, since I had mentioned on the blog that my son Ben had been selected to play for the New England team at the over-30 Baseball World Championship series held last week in Florida.

Here's Ben. The New England team lost in the semi-final round so they did not emerge as the champions, but Ben, who played second base and shortstop, said it was all wonderful fun---well, here's his actual description:

 I got back from the Fall Classic in West Palm last night and wanted to let you know what a great experience it was.  The New England team, made up of 15 guys from Maine, NH and Mass (and called “The Maine Diamond Dogs”) lost in the semi-finals, 3-1, to a team from New Jersey.  Along the way, we beat the Puerto Rican team in the 6000 seat main stadium, which was the highlight of the trip.  I also got the chance to play next to John Collins, an old friend from Colby, which was great.  Our team finished with 3 wins and 2 losses.  I batted cleanup and hit .333 for the tournament, playing shortstop and second base.  No, no home runs. I also got a chance to play against Dante Bichette, a former major league all-star who holds most of the all-time records for the Colorado Rockies and finished his career in Boston.  Fun stuff, for sure.

His two sons tend to use the very descriptive word "funnest." I think it might apply to Ben's baseball week.

Note to Kids

Kids: If you want to send me an email with a  question or comment about one of my books...the blog is not the place to do that. Instead, click on "E-mail me" at the top of my website. Thanks!

Crisp November weather

Here is Alfie, in his hunting-season garb, so that his white-tipped tail wagging in the underbrush won't be mistaken for that of a deer.

Here's Susan Goodman a few minutes ago, snagging some of the last apples for yet one more dessert.

and here is Alfie again, munching on leftovers.

This is our last day here, and no, we have not spent all of our time cooking--and eating--apple crisps. We have made two fine soups. We have watched four episodes of "Breaking Bad." And we have both worked.  Hard. Susan started a new book, despaired of it, was re-heartened, and continues to plug away with vigor.  I returned to one in progress, added a new character and a few new plot elements, and got something of a momentum (which will now stall for a bit while I go home and then to Philadelphia for NCTE). Still, moving forward is always good.

Writers in Pajamas

First, before explaining the odd title to this post; here is the photo of the Literature to Life Award given to me last week in NYC by the American Place Theatre:

As you can see, it is quite lovely, engraved with a passage from THE GIVER.  i went on after that occasion from New York to Chicago, for the opening of the play GOSSAMER, which has received absolutely wonderful reviews. From the photo on my previous post, you can see why: the staging and design was quite magical.

Following Chicago, I went to Albany---more about that trip in another post---and then to the annual Children's Book Fair at the University of Connecticut. There was a very nice dinner, and a chance to meet the other authors and illustrators, plus the staff of the Dodd Center there -- a fine collection of children's literature original materials---and also those hard-workers who run the book fair each year, quite an undertaking.

We visitors all stayed in the Nathan Hale Inn, where at 2:15 AM the fire alarm went off. That was the time and place where, in a misty drizzle, one could observe some of the finest people in the field, in their pajamas.  In my haste to leave my room I left my iPhone behind and so could not take pictures. But illustrator Diane DeGroat did, and threatened to post them on Facebook. I fear they won't be terribly revelatory because it was the traditional dark and rainy night---the only lights from two large fire engines. Eventually we were allowed to return to our rooms; no explanation of what the firefighters found or fought. Could a children's book author perhaps have been SMOKING! Yikes!

One more photo---a Martha Stewart sort of photo---because I am now in Maine, and have picked some last apples in hopes of creating a dessert.

My friend, writer Susan Goodman, is here with me for a few days of uninterrupted work. Well, maybe interrupted by apple-crisp making.

What did Littlest look like?

Behind her, Thin Elderly, her mentor. And behind him, The Heap.

Break a Leg!

The opening performance of "Gossamer" at the Adventure Stage Chicago was an absolute treat: the staging, costumes, set, and the individual performances all went together so smoothly and made for a magical 90 minutes and a completely rapt audience.

These couple of pictures are dreadful because I was using my iPhone while sitting on the stage afterward, with no light in some areas and too much in others. But here, photographed badly, is Toby, the dog, operated by Kasey Foster, who brought a semi-puppet to vigorous and endearing life:

And here is the entire cast sitting on the edge of the stage, answering questions from the audience:

In the foreground is Susan Veronika Adler who played the foster mother with compassion and restraint. I'm sorry that you can't see Victoria Abram-Copenhaver, who played the boy, John, an 8-year-old child damaged emotionally by abuse. Victoria is small, and to be honest, I thought she was actually a young boy until, post-performance, she removed her baseball cap and they announced her name. Wow. She went from swagger to heartbreak in the role.

You CAN see "Littlest" in this photo, seated in the middle of the group with her pale blue legs dangling. She is Elizabeth Birkenmeier, and this was her theater debut in Chicago---she has been performing Shakespeare in St. Louis till now.  Remember her name because you will hear it again. She captured Littlest exactly: her innocence, her impetuousness, her energy and curiosity, her gradual maturation and her compelling charm.

No room to list everyone but they all were wonderful, and my thanks go to Brian Bell who directed the play and made it work so well.

*****

I came home to find a package of books which at first seemed somewhat mysterious. Translation copies are always sent to me, and at first glance this appeared to be "The Giver' in Spanish, but with a girl's picture on the jacket. Take a look:

But on closer scrutiny I realized that it is THE GIVER, Book II: Gathering Blue.  Hmmmm.  I had heard that THE GIVER has become wildly popular in Spain----so clearly they are capitalizing on that---and why not? Presumably they will soon send me THE GIVER, Book III: Messenger.

I have yet to photogaph the incredible award they gave me in NY Tuesday night, from the American Place Theatre, but will get to it next, thereby rounding out a series of narcissistic posts.

Lots of waiting mail to be dealt with, and then the Patriots/Dolphins game at 1.

That Toddlin' Town

Now I am in Chicago, staying at a B&B called Ray's Bucktown B&B, subtitled o its business cards "Not Your Parents' B&B"---of course what Ray, the proprietor, doesn't realize is that I AM my parents, or even my grandparents.

I don't know this city well, or its neighborhoods, but "Bucktown" seems to be a funky/artsy neighborhood, and therefore, I suppose, would not be the choice of those "parents" accustomed to The Four Seasons. But I like it. Tonight I am on my own and walked around checking out the restaurants, looking for a place to eat, and ended up in one named BRISTOL, about two blocks from Ray's. The list of entrees was daunting enough that I photographed it with my iPhone:

I was not adventurous---okay, I was a coward---and had the chicken. The pig tail was tempting, though.

Then, back in my room, I signed a batch of posters for tomorrow's play:

They had already been signed by the crew and cast. Tomorrow will be a preview performance, with the opening on Saturday. "Fanciful staging," it says on the poster. Can't wait to see what that means!

Before I left New York, I had lunch yesterday with Jules Feiffer. He and I have done a book together which will be published in the spring---and he has several other things due out this spring, including a memoir, which he gave to me in advanced-reader's-copy form. I love Jules. He's a sweet, honest, funny man. All of that on top of his immense talent.

To NYC tomorrow

I got home yesterday frm Keene, NH, after a busy Saturday at the Keene State College Book Festival, which David White has been running for---I think he said 38 years. (Can that be? He isn't old enough, surely!) I have been several times before, and it is always fun, with an enthusiastic audience  (500 this year) and varied, always interesting speakers...(this year surprisingly, all female: Katherine Paterson, Jane Yolen, Lita Judge, Beth Krommes, along with me.)  A squirrel performed a self-immolation on a transformer and caused a power outage of an hour or so but everyone re-grouped and made the best of it. And dinner was roast beef, not barbequed squirrel, despite many jokes about the possibility of the latter.

Tomorrow I head to NYC and here, lifted from the newspaper there, is why:

The American Place Theatre

The Giver: Theatrical Premiere And 2009 Literature To Life Award Event

Tuesday, Nov 3 6:30p at Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, NY

The Giver: Theatrical Premiere and 2009 Literature to Life Award Event Presented to author Lois Lowry by David Kener, Executive Director of The American Place Theatre; Performed by Melissa Center; Adapted and Directed by Wynn Handman Current educators are invited to join celebrated author Lois Lowry as she experiences her powerful book, The Giver, come to life in the renowned Literature to Life  tradition. This American Place Theatre world premiere follows the story of twelve-year-old Jonas, who as a member of a seemingly ideal world, has been selected to receive the memories of a far different past. Following the one-hour solo-performance, Ms. Lowry will receive the 8th prestigious Literature to Life Award; past recipients include Sue Monk Kidd, Frank McCourt and Ray Bradbury. Audience members are invited to stay for a light reception with the author and artists following the premiere.

Wild Rumpus

Well, I have now seen "Where the Wild Things Are"  Everyone I had talked to had a different opinion---reviews are mixed---and I went at it with an open mind.

The little boy playing Max was wonderful.  And the visual effects spectacular.

But I have to admit I didn't like it.  I wanted to. It has been a great favorite of my younger son, who still, in his 40s, treasures his childhood edition which, many years later, Maurice  signed and decorated for him.

But my son now has two sons of his own. I was thinking of them when I watched the film. And I felt they would be bored and puzzled by it.

As I was.

Getting ready for winter

My gardening crew---all women---were here today, putting everything to bed, covering things with mulch, getting ready for, ugh, snow.  I've had Lucia and her crew working here for the past 8 years and I love how strong they are, how tireless, how cheerful.

My own daughter, my younger one, runs a business that is usually done only by men. She removes paint from various things but specializes in antique cars. So she is trim and strong as can be and very proud, rightly, of being an expert at such a demanding job.

It is very cool to see women loving hard work and doing it well.

And speaking of women: today is my granddaughter's 16th birthday. And darn it, the gift that I was so excited about sending her...which was mailed 3 weeks ago to Germany...has not arrived yet. Martin and I are going over there late in November, so we can take a duplicate if it has been lost in the mail. But I suspect it will show up in a few days. It's just disappointing that it wasn't there for the big day. More for me than for her!  Hiss boo to the postal service.

Today was not a full day of work because I was feeling kind of crummy with this cold and ended up napping this afternoon.  Did the trick, apparently, because this evening I am feeling pretty good and suspect that I'll be fine tomorrow. And they are predicting rain, so it won't be tempting to go outside...  I'll get lots done.

(And that last paragraph is why blogs are boring).

up north

I drove up here, to Maine, yesterday, listening to the Patriots on the car radio en route, and arriving at just the time of day on a late fall day when the shadows are long and seem almost golden in the reflection of the trees. The lake water is deep blue and the air is crisp.

I am snuffling with a cold but that's okay because I have no commitments this week, no one to sneeze on, no speeches to cough through. I came to spend the week alone, working. And this morning I opened up one of the three manuscripts that have been in the throes of neglect, and started in.

It seems odd to be here without the dog---I think it's the first time. And I'm aware of it when I walk from one room to another, and realize nobody has gone on full alert (She's leaving the room! I must follow!) And when I drove into town to get a newspaper, no one ran out and stood by the car, waiting to jump in.

I left him home both to keep Martin company but also because I will go from here on Friday to Keene, NH, to speak at the annual Children's Book Festival that Keene State College has held for many many years. I've been there twice before.  By then my cold should be over and done, and I'll be able to enjoy being back at Keene. Katherine Paterson will be there, and Jane Yolen. The person I will miss anew is Trina Schart Hyman, who was often at that festival and is so fondly remembered there.

Last night my son and a friend came up from Portland and took me out for dinner at a Main Street restaurant. But now that I am alone I will rely on leftovers (doggie bag from last night, plus a mountain of rigatoni-with-sausage-and-canellini* I brought from home) and not bother with cooking.

"Where the Wild Things Are" is on at the local theater and if I get enough work done, I may reward myself late in the week by going to see it.

*I'm trying to remember the name of the wonderful cookbook---one word, starts with S---Ah, yes! STIR! Great Italian recipes---from which I made that the other night, in great quantities.

sniff sniff

This is Alfie. And this is the door leading to our garage fro a sort of mudroom off the kitchen.

No, Alfie does not want to go into the garage. But he is smelling something that is underneath the garage, or the mudroom.  We can't smell it. But it is driving him crazy. He is spending every possible moment standing in this place, nose to the floor, occasionally woofing.

Once, a number of years ago, before The Alf was born, we did have a skunk under the garage. We paid a man $500 to come and trap that sucker.

I don't think this is a skunk, though. We smell nothing remotely skunkish. 

I have just put Alfie into the front yard, and I have washed the floor of the mudroom and the bottom of the garage door with ammonia. No, this will not rid us of whatever is living under there. But it MAY make Alfie stop obsessing about it.

Hope, hope.

brag brag brag

This is my youngest child, my son Ben, who is an attorney in Portland, Maine, and the father of my two grandsons who are almost 9, and 11.  It has been a long time since Ben was a college athlete and baseball star.  But he has, for years, enjoyed playing on local teams---this last summer in an over-30 league. He had quite a record this last season and as it turned out, ended up with a batting average of over 600, and placed #8 in the nation for teams of all ages. He has just been notified that he is to represent New England in the over-30 World Championship in Florida, where teams from all over the world will compete for the title over four days in mid-November.

Fun! Yay, Ben! We'll all be rooting for you!

 

Rhode Island once again

The September that I was seventeen years old, I arrived alone by train in Providence, Rhode Island, to begin college. There had, earlier in the fall, been a large hurricane that had flooded downtown Providence, which was still cleaning up and recovering. So it looked pretty crummy---and in truth, after it was cleaned up, it still looked pretty crummy in those days. I was happy to head uphill to Brown University, which was NOT downtown, and which even back then had an attractive campus surrounded by historical residential areas.

"The HIll," as it was---and still is---called, has not changed much. But downtown Providence is very different from the shabby, downtrodden look it had in the 50th.  MUCH upscaled and improved.

On Friday I got off the train once again, this time to attend the Rhode Island Book Festival which is always held at Lincoln School.  I have been to it twice before in its 20 years of existence, and it is always a pleasure to return and see the excitement about books that it generates.  One of the pleasures of such events, for me, is always the chance to see, sometimes once again, sometimes for the first time, authors and illustrators whose work I admire.  This year, the guests at the festival were Etienne Delessert, Mary Downing Hahn, Mary Ann Hoberman, Jerry Pinkney, Brian Selznick, Anita Silvey, Chris Van Allsburg, Padma Venkatraman, Paul Zelinsky, Christopher Paul Curtis

I copied that list from the website of the festival and now for the life of me can't get it smaller. But what the heck. All of those people are stars and deserve a big font.

Here's a photo of me with Paul Zelinsky

Next trip (tomorrow) is to Rochester, NY, to be writer-in-residence at Monroe Community College for a couple of days. It will be a wonderful time, I know. But when I look at the calendar I always wonder how on earth..or why on earth...I said yes to so many things.   Jerry Pinkney, yesterday, made a good suggestion, when all of us were describing similar concerns.  He pointed out that when we (he included himself) receive an invitation for a time in the future, we look at the calendar and think, "Oh, I'm free then" and we say yes.

We say yes so often that we end up with little time to do out actual work. His suggestion---a good one---is that we should write WORK on (many) calendar days. Then we would not be so easily deceived into thinking we aren't doing anything on that date.

Now if only I had a calendar for 2010 or 2011 in front of me!

I'd better check the weather there, since a sudden October snow took us by surprise in Massachusetts yesterday. It seems to have taken the Tennessee Titans by surprise as well, but not the Patriots, who absolutely wiped them out. Tom Brady threw 5 touchdown passes in one quarter alone. But who's counting?!

small hands

I just came across, in my computer, this drawing, done by my older daughter, an artist, of her brother's hand and that of his new baby. That baby's birth announcement contained a line from e.e. cummings: nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

That baby is now eleven years old.

But here he is at two and a half, when his little brother was born, and here is THAT birth announcement:

 


 

Literature to Life

It appears that his event is sold out. Sorry!

Eat your heart out....

...ANYPLACE THAT IS NOT NEW ENGLAND IN OCTOBER!

My son just sent this from his weekend at Moosehead Lake in Maine...

Every single day??!!

An article in this morning's NY Times tells of a woman who has taken on a self-imposed challenge, to read a book a day for a year. Not surprisingly, she reads quickly, as I do (the misfortune of that for me, is that I don't retain a lot of what I read)  Thinking about it, I went to my KIndle and counted the number of downloaded books---170; and that list began in March, 2008, so those 170 books were over the course of 19 months.  Math time: That comes to about 9 books a  month.  Then, of course, I also read "real" books, and I have no way of counting those. I'm going to guess those came to another 4 books per month. That's a book every two and a half days. Sounds about right.

Also in the NY Times, today...this in the on-line version---a video about a family in Pakistan, displaced from their home in Swat during the Pakistani Military action against the Taliban,  The father ran a school for girls, and his daughter was a wonderfully articulate (and fluent in English) 12-year-old. She spoke of the frustration of having nothing to read, when she was being moved from household to household as the family looked for safe places to stay.

Just yesterday I had two 12-year-olds here, Martin's twin granddaughters (they'll be thirteen at Thanksgiving)---one talked of how much she loved "Hunger Games," which I had given her on her last birthday, and now loves its sequel (Darn. I had bought it and put it away for her coming birthday, but she's already read it)

And Saturday, in Maine, I had breakfast with my own two grandsons, and they talked about what they are reading (all my grandchildren know what topic interests me most)..the 11 year old boy is in the middle of the Spiderwick Chronicles, and the 8-year-old absorbed in Stone Fox.

And me? One of my 13 books this month?  BROOKLYN, by Colm Toibin.

This is, I suppose, TMI.

Another Opening, Another Show...

Adventure Stage in Chicago has recently started rehearsals for "Gossamer" and this is from their blog:

There's something incredibly powerful about assembling a group of people in a room around one idea. Tuesday night was the first rehearsal of Gossamer, and we had tons of incredibly talented people (actors, designers, directors, technicians, staff, etc.) all on stage sitting around a giant table, talking about the show and how it would look. After touching base with all of the actors and introducing ourselves, there was a gigantic design presentation with visuals of the set, the costumes, the lighting and the puppets. We heard clips from a very exciting sound design, and saw projections of images that will be used to support the story.

But by far the most exciting part of the evening was the read through that followed. It was amazing to be able to hear so many talented actors bringing the story to life, even while still sitting at the table. After seeing the design elements, and all the possibilities, hearing the play read out loud made it take on a new life. Afterward, everyone left the space feeling energized and excited to start work on this show.

I will be out there in November to see the show. I've already seen it in Portland, OR and in Milwaukee (and will again in Philadephia in spring 2010) but it is newly fascinating each time because different directors bring their own vision and imagination to it.

Quoth the Raven

Well, the Ravens didn't slink off the playing field muttering "Nevermore" yesterday, but they DID get beaten by the Patriots, and I was right there on the 50-yard-line enjoying every minute.

This photo (pre-game) shows nothing except how very good my seat was. Many thanks to the Kraft family, who own the Patriots, and who have an almost-11-year-old granddaughter who is a book-lover.

I remember high school football games from my adolescent years (until I went to an all-girls school for my final two years of high school) and I remember being COLD. Games were on Friday nights and thogh we bundled up, it seems in my memory as if my feet always froze.

When I was in junior high school, in Tokyo, my older sister's boyfriend was a football star. Funny, I remember that his number was 41----that goes back 60 years!  The games were played in Meiji Stadium, in Tokyo, which had been built for the pre-war Olympics; and during the summers we swam almost every day in the Olympic pool there---I seem to remember that we could walk there from our house, but I could be wrong---maybe we took some sort of bus. Even as kids (I was 11, 12, and 13 in Tokyo) we made our way everywhere by bus and train, and sometimes bike, very easily and safely.

During spring vacation, and also again one summer. I went alone by overnight train to the city of Kure. A friend of mine from Tokyo had moved with her family down to an island called Eta-jima in the inland sea, very near Hiroshima, and reachable by boat from Kure. Her family met my train, I suppose, and took me over to the island for a lengthy and wonderful stay.  Just a couple of years ago, reading the terrific novel "The Great Fire" by Shirley Hazzard, I recognized the island of Eta-jima as part of the setting, though the author mis-spelled its name (I emailed my friend Allen Say, who spent his childhood near there, to corroborate the fact of the mis-spelling I suspected).

I just looked online, googling Eta-jima, and came up with photos that transport me back in time. The village on Nagako, on the island: 

I would not have been looking for BEER as the sign says, not at age 12---but I certainly wandered and out of all the shops. And here is the ferry to and from Kure; I was a passenger on it many, many times:

 

But now I have wandered down memory lane way farther than anyone would possibly want to follow me!

October in Maine

This is such a gorgeous time of year in New England and I wish I could have stayed up in Maine longer, but had too many trips to make this fall. (And a Patriots game to go to tomorrow!)

But my son took his two boys, 8 and 11, and three mountain bikes, up to Acadia National Park for the weekend. (Luckily they have a hotel with an indoor swimming pool because the weather forecast was for rain today).  For those of you who don't know Acadia---or haven't watched the Ken Burns series on National Parks this week ---it is one of the truly beautiful places in the USA, maybe the world; and we have several billionaires, including John D. Rockefeller, to thank for its existence.

Apparently the guys are undaunted so far by bad weather because my son just sent these two photos from his iPhone:

Now I will start sound like a travelogue. But I assume they will go (probably by car, not bike), weather permitting, to the top of Mont Cadillac, the highest peak on the north Atlantic seaboard, and the first place to view sunrise in the USA.

(They didn't take this photo, not in the rain. I got it off the internet)

I plan to get up to the farm the end of this month, to get some uninterrupted work time, and to see the last of the foliage before everything turns brown and gray and stark, and the sound of rifles will mean that deer hunting season is  in full swing.

UPS has just delivered a small package which contains the ARCs (advanced reading copies) of my next book, coming in the spring: The Birthday Ball, with Jules Feiffer's charming illustrations.  No profundities in this book, no thought-provoking passages, just pure fun. A romp. Here's a peek:

You're bringing WHO?

I know, it should be whom.

Whom it is, is KUZO.   I got home from Washington and Baltimore Sunday evening. On Monday my brother and his wife arrived for a visit, from Virginia. When we talked about this visit a while back, they asked if they could bring their pet and I said sure.  We like pets, in this house. Alfie likes other peoples' pets as playmates.

Here is Alfie, getting to know Kuzo..

Yes, Kuzo talks. When they take him off to bed (he sleeps on his stand in the guest bathroom, with the door closed, he says night-night and I love you, and now, on short acquaintance, he says Alfie.

The National Book Festival was fun, despite bad weather. Hundreds of people stood in line, in the rain, for hours, to get books signed, and it made me feel as if the future of literature and books is in good shape.

Here's a photo at the Baltimore/Washington Airport, where my flight was delayed for 3 hours because of weather.  During the wait I read two books by authors with whom I had just spent the weekend:  The Associate, by John Grisham; and Manhunt, by James Swanson.

And here is my brother Jon, introducing parrot to dog, and vice versa.

Summer's Last Gasps

I just took this with my iPhone, and realized that A) you can see me reflected in the door, and B) you can get a glimpse of Alfie looking out through the door, wondering what the heck I am doing.

What I was doing was recording the annual fall spectacle of my coleus (thank you, White Flower Farm) at its so-magnificent height that the mailman has trouble getting to the mail slot (there is a second equally huge coleus on the other side of the door).  One morning soon, though, it will all have frozen, shriveled, and died.

Tomorrow morning, after getting a flu shot, I will head to the airport and then to Washington DC for the annual National Book Festival. Two busy days there, and one in Baltimore. Then, amazingly, two weeks at home---and maybe I can get some neglected work done?!---before my next gig, this one in Providence, RI.

As a result of this blog, I just had an email from a childhood friend (Hi, Carol, if you are reading this) whom I last saw in probably 1952. Technology has made the world so much smaller and accessible (well, duh, could I please come up with some keener insight than that!?) and over the years I have heard from friends with whom I went to school in Tokyo (ages 11-14), Pennsylvania (ages 6-11, and 14-15), and New York (ages 15-17), not to mention college and young motherhood, all the rest of it. Once I heard from the grandchild of someone who had babysat for my children!  It took me a while to wrap my mind around that one!

Most meaningful have been the emails from the young men who worked with, or had been trained by, my son, who died at age 36, and who have written to tell me their memories of him and what he had meant to them.  I always send those along, after I answer them, to my son's widow and daughter.  (It sounds oddly sexist to say "young men" because I know there are female fighter pilots in the USAF, and perhaps he instructed some, or flew with some.. But it has been only men that I've heard from).

I've heard, too, from people who were pictured, or mentioned, in my memoir "Looking Back."  The little boy who loaned me his football uniform for Halloween when I was eight, or so---now a retired Lutheran minister. The little girl whom my father always called "Fancy Nickel"---now a doctor's wife in Pennsylvania.

Incidentally, I would love to hear, with an abject apology, from a boy named Allen Stewart who lived on 87th Street in Brooklyn in 1941, and who borrowed my copy of "Mr. Popper's Penguins" when I was four years old. AND NEVER RETURNED IT.

childhood windows

At the conference I just attended in Idaho, Eric Rohmann talked about childhood memories. When it was my turn, I also talked a bit about memory, as I frequently do, in talking about The Giver.  I ended up, after I came home, thinking a lot about the same topic---and that led me to archives in my computer, and a couple of pictures that my daughter did when she was studying art.  (Actually, she still studies art, but these pictures date from some time ago.)  I don't know what -- if any -- the assignment was. But she did a drawing and then a painting of the view from her childhood window. So she was looking back, in her memory, probably 30 years.

The first one, a pencil sketch, is realistic in a folk-arty sort of way; her bedroom window overlooked a driveway that ended in a garage/barn.  This was in Maine, so there was snow on the ground for many months of the year, as there is in her sketch.

The second one is a painting of the same scene at night. The light that you can see over the garage door is the sketch is on, in the painting, and glowing through snow. I love this painting; it's so evocative.

And both of them set me thinking about the view from my own childhood window---in my case, the home of my grandparents, where I lived for a while during WWII when my father was overseas.  Interestingly, my daughter's two remembered scenes are both in winter.  Mine is spring. There was a tall magnolia tree outside of my childhood bedroom and when in my memory I look out, it is those lush pinkish-white blossoms that I see.

Surely my daughter looked through that window in summer?  Surely I looked through mine in winter?  Why, I wonder, when we call upon a memory, does it lock onto a particular time?

Excuse me, big WHAT?!

Here I am in Rexburg, Idaho...gorgeous sunny weather, and a terrific conference on Children's Literature sponsored by Brigham Young University Idaho.  Such conferences are always a chance to meet interesting people, and there are certainly lots of them here, all very hospitable.

So...what dumb thing did I do this time?  Well, I was speaking to an audience of 250 people, and using a Power Point---people do seem to enjoy have having something to look at, I think. And the chapel in which I was speaking had a wonderful built-in tech system which made everything so easy.

But when I was showing pictures of some of the photographs I'd done for book jackets...Number the Stars, for example...I explained that I had studied photography in graduate school, and for many years had done a lot of portraits. "Photographing children was always a big love of mine," I said.  Then I gulped.  "Ooops," I said. "I can't believe I just used that phrase---big love---in front of this audience.""

Fortunately all 250 Mormons burst out laughing.

More Tales of the City

On the evening of 9/11, in San Francisco, conversation at dinner turned to baseball. The question was a asked: what years recently did the Red Sox win the Series?  No one could remember. I texted my son Ben, baseball player extraordinaire, and Keeper of Sox Knowledge, and asked him but got no reply.  The conversation moved on to other things. The evening ended. We all went to bed.

I woke from a sound sleep at 4:30 AM because some kind of alarm was going off. Not a siren but a beeping. Loud enough to wake me. I sat up, confused, and then heard an enormous explosion. Lights were flashing. It was like the end of the world. (Later my friend Janet, who was awakened in a different room, said she thought immediately that it was a terrible repeat of 9/11/01)

Later my SF daughter told me that all the car alarms on her street went off.

It was a huge thunderstorm---almost unheard of in San Francisco.  I just found this amazing photo of it online:

I don't know the name of the photographer but he wrote this:

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder (well actually it was 4:30 this morning). How far off I sat and wondered. 
Drove to the Marin Headlands but it was way too foggy so I went low near the Coast Guard station for this shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sat in my car with a remote shutter listening to podcasts. Wrapped a poncho around my camera when the rain started. Took lots of shots, this was about my fourth shot of the morning when I got lucky. You should of heard me say "YEEEESS!" when I saw the huge strike and the sky lit up white/blue with light. 

As for the beeping alarm that first woke me? It was my son in Maine, 7:30 AM there, and he had just noticed my texted question and replied (not realizing I was in California): "2004 and 2007"

I finally got to the movie "Julie and Julia" while I was on the west coast. During the late summer, when everyone else saw it, I was in Maine, and our little local theater there didn't show it. It was fun seeing Meryl Streep do what she always does so well---and particularly fun because the REAL Julia Child lived near us and shopped at the same grocery store we use, at least for meat---we have a great butcher at the (shameless plug) Fresh Pond Market.

I noticed a little oddity that the director should have avoided, though. At the end of the film, JC receives the first copy of her book in the mail from the publisher. It arrives in---and she tears open---a padded envelope, the kind we all use now, but which did not exist then.  A small error, but since they did such a good job, particularly, I thought, with her clothes...they shouldn't have let that one slip by.

Fatima

I returned from San Francisco Saturday night, arriving home yesterday morning, which meant a lost day yesterday as I napped and dozed while watching the US Open.  In SF, a favorite city of mine, I ate too much, in wonderful restuarants, with good friends and also with my daughter and her friend Steve,  Eat eat eat.  And I went shopping for things I didn't need, with my friend Janet, an artist who knows all the most interesting stores. Spend spend spend.

The reason I mentioned eating and spending is because I came home to find the packet containing information about the Afghani woman whom I have agreed to sponsor through the organization called Women for Women International.  (www.womenforwomen.org)

Fatima  is 36 years old. Married. Four children, one of whom goes to school.   She herself has no education whatsoever.  She cannot read or write. She lives in a house with no electricity or water.  She has no medical care for her children.

I will keep her photo on my desktop so that I look into those eyes every day as I consider whether to click the "BUY NOW" button on various bookmarked websites. The world is so unfair in ts disparities. I hope I can make a small difference in this woman's life.

Start of School

A friend of mine who teaches at Harvard's Graduate School of Education asked me this morning if I had any first-day-of-school photos, and I sent her this one, which she will incorporate into her Power Point presentation for 60+ new graduate students tomorrow, at her first lecture.

What she will be illustrating, with this photo of me and my sister in 1942, and whatever very wise words she uses to accompany it, is the sense of anticipation and eager expectation with which children approach the beginning of their education...not just kindergarten, which I was starting the day of this photo, but each year, anew, the beginning of another opportunity.

I used this same photo on the website TeachingBooks.net recently, with this accompanying brief essay:

We’re starting school. First day. My sister and me: we are eight and five; second grade and kindergarten.

I’m the younger sister. And the photograph, taken in 1942, is black and white.  Amazingly, though, I remember the color of everything: our matching jackets (navy blue), my skirt (royal blue), Helen’s dress (blue and red plaid), and our shoes, dark brown and freshly polished.

Why the little purses? (Mine was red)  I suppose they took the place of today’s backpacks and contained our treasured pencils and erasers.

What I remember most (because the memory was reinforced each September) is the feeling of anticipation. Everything was new, exciting, yet to be discovered.  I felt that way each fall for years: all the way through graduate school. There would be bullies and unfair teachers and, eventually, the binomial theorem to face. But what you felt, each fall, was the beauty of the clean lined paper, the smell of the brand new pencils, the unpeeled crayons with pointed tips, the perfect placement of your desk.

And I still feel that way each time I begin writing a book. There is something about the vast empty space, waiting: the sense of possibility, and the mystery of it.

Interestingly, book characters seem to feel the same way, at least in books by me:

Annemarie runs down a street, laughing, with her best friend, on an ordinary day.

Jonas rides his bicycle along a path in his well-ordered community.

Matty grumbles good-naturedly as he helps to prepare dinner.

It never takes long before things begin to be complicated, of course. It was true for me as a schoolgirl; by October my notebook was disorganized and I didnt really understand long division, and three girls had formed a club that excluded me. But I would soldier on (so would Annemarie, Jonas, and Matty—along with me, the writer) to the destination, hard going though it would be at times.

And eventually the time would come again: the next start.  The new lunchbox, the brand new shoes of September.

Or the fresh Page 1, Chapter One and the feeling of anticipation once more. It never diminishes.

****

It's that time of year again.

Court is in Session

My grandfather was a lawyer. My mother’s brother was a lawyer. My ex-husband is a lawyer. My son is a lawyer. My stepson is a lawyer.

 

So why have I never had the slightest desire to be a lawyer?

 

Easy. I hate arguments.

 

And for that reason I am never going to say another word about the teaching of reading or the use of books in the classroom or what constitutes classic literature or whether it is of value in our lives or if , in fact, chocolate is better than vanilla.

 

And please stop emailing me about how I don’t know anything and am unqualified to comment on the subject, because it is hearsay and irrelevant and prejudicial.