Inhaling Politics & Prose

Here's a quick shout-out to Rees, who came to visit me at Politics and Prose yesterday afternoon. Rees is a discerning 10-year-old reader who peppered me with questions about ALL-STARS and EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS. He was a pleasure to talk with -- he even found an adult friend upstairs, a teacher friend, and brought him downstairs to meet me. Thanks, Rees, for a fabulous conversation, and thanks to Rees's mother, Heidi, who works at P&P. It was so good to see Jewell Stoddard and Dara La Porte again, along with Gussie Lewis, whom I had never met, and who arranged the stock signing yesterday afternoon.

After school, I took the Metro from Dunn Loring (the end of the orange line) to Metro Center, changed trains and took the red line to Van Ness, and walked the eight blocks north to Politics & Prose. Walking in to that store took me back to my years in D.C. -- nostalgic R Us today. I took a deep breath as stood there at the top of the stairs that lead to the children's department and some of my hero friends. I remember the days when Jewell owned The Cheshire Cat in D.C. -- what a fabulous independent children's bookstore was Cheshire Cat. Jewell and the children's department at Politics & Prose give me hope for children's books and readers.

Of course I didn't take a single photograph. We sat around the big table downstairs swapping stories and laughing and basking in one another's company. Who thinks to take a picture at a time like that? Oh, well.

Tami Lewis Brown and Louise Simone stopped by -- they are writers and librarians at Sheridan School nearby and also fellow Vermont College graduates -- it was so good to see them! Kathie Meizner and I went to supper later and Kathie gave me a ride back to my hotel in Fairfax -- thanks so much, Kathie, for the ride in the night, for good conversation, and a long catch-up.

I'm off to work now in fifth grade. I have lots to tell you about Canterbury Woods Elementary School, teachers and students. Think collaboration, coaching, mentoring, laughing, working hard... lots of good work in the world is going on right here. More from the other end of this good day.

Hangin' at NCTE

I'm going to get to NCTE -- what a time, what a time. This is such a rich convention -- so much to learn. Before I got started at NCTE, however, I stopped at Books of Wonder, a fabulous children's book store in Manhattan, to sign stock. I've been wanting to visit for years, and here was my chance. I found out that the buyer, Patty Ocfemia, is also a singer/songwriter! I'm listening to her CD, Heaven's Best Guest, as I type this entry.

"Is it folk?" I asked Patty when she gifted me with the CD. "Aggressive folk," she said. Yes, it is. Roseanne Cash is quoted as saying, "Patty has a voice that is smoky, urgent, and real, and a songwriting sensibility that is unique." Yes.

After I signed stock, I ate a cupcake at The Cupcake Cafe in Books of Wonder and savored once again M.T. Anderson's STRANGE MR. SATIE, one of my favorite picture books of the last few years. I bought the book and then (if you've read the blog entries of the book tour, you won't be surprised), I left the book at Blossom, where my editor, Kate Harrison, and I had dinner on Friday night. Kate says she has located it and will send it to me. Thanks, Kate.

Here we are on the convention floor the next morning, me wearing my Mrs. Frizzle glasses -- got 'em in Iowa City earlier this month.





I finally got to meet up again with Alison Morris, children's buyer at Wellesley Booksmith, and good writer all-around. She wrote an introduction for me at BEA two years ago when LITTLE BIRD won the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award and I've been wanting to catch up with her ever-since, to thank her and to ask her for that introduction -- I collect good writing. Recipes, obituaries, essays, directions, book reviews, movie reviews (I love Roger Ebert), introductions -- there is an art to writing well, and I know when I'm in the presence of a Good Writer. Alison also writes ShelfTalker: A Children's Bookseller's Blog at Publisher's Weekly online. Same Good Writer, Same Good Writing.

Here's a cousin of mine I haven't seen for too many years, I'm embarrassed to say. Here's Jessica Weleski, all grown up and an English Teacher! It was so good to see her. We need a catch up. I hope we get one soon --

And one more group shot (just pretend I'm not in all of these; believe me, I don't want to post this many photos of myself) with teachers and writers -- that's Jo Knowles on the left (front), whose new (and first!) book is here -- LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL -- Yay! -- And Cindy Faughnan, fellow Vermont College alum and friend.

It was such a love fest on the floor... hmmm... I guess I'll share these photos, too -- here are heroes -- English teachers. I'd love to have their names, as we were having way too much fun to write them down, but aren't their faces -- their visages -- just fantastic? You can tell they are great teachers:


and one more:










This is not an English teacher. Big points if you know who the goateed fellow is. The redhead is his son. Bigger points if you know HIS name! Fun to see them again.

This (below) is also not an English teacher, it's Vivian Vande Velde, whose books I have enjoyed for years.


Vivian has lots of NCTE photos up at her site already.




So let me show you our panel for "Reading Like a Writer," the NCTE session I was part of. Here are Claudia Sharpe (left) and Sarah Ellis... was I in the presence of greatness or what?

I'm not surprised that we had a packed room with people sitting on the floor, etc., as these two women have quite the following. I must admit, too, that I felt flustered in their presence, and in the presence of All Those Fabulous English Teachers as I stood up to do my part... it might have been partly due to the fact that my Harcourt signing on the convention floor bumped up against our session at the Marriott Marquis, and I was literally running in the door as our session began. Couldn't find my notes. What to do? Punt. It was okay. I found the good chair palunka, the smiles and nods, and I was soothed as I spoke. What I wouldn't give, though, to spend time in each of those teachers' classrooms, watching them work. Oh, please, let me watch them work some day. I will bring my notebook! I will take voluminous notes! I will learn so much!

What we talked about in our session was helping young writers take apart a text (in addition to enjoying it) and discover how a writer writes -- what tools does she employ to tell a good story? How can we use those tools to improve our own work? That's what I have always done -- it's how I learned to write. I took apart the work of those writers I admired, and I modeled my own writing after what I admired, as I found my own voice and my own way. I do this still, today.
So that was some of Saturday. On Sunday morning, Jim and I found our way to the Vedanta Center of New York, and then to MOMA to see the Alexander Calder exhibit. Calder is one of my heroes. Jim and I had tickets to see Mulgrew Miller (one of Jim's heroes) at Lincoln Center on Friday night -- I was falling asleep on my feet by then but it was so worth it. What a genius is Mulgrew! What a band!

I'm going to find my way to a nap this afternoon. The cats have already settled around me. I didn't even tell you about the night walking tour of Brooklyn on Sunday night and... and... and... so much was packed into these few days. But time to turn forward. It's Thanksgiving week. I'm writing a eulogy this week for a friend's beloved dog, to be delivered at Thanksgiving... isn't that the most amazing thing? I'm writing it in the voice of Comfort Snowberger -- that's even more amazing. I'm honored to be asked to do this. More about this later, if friend Diane will allow me to share it with you.

My two youngest children, Hannah and Zach, both in their twenties, live here in Atlanta. They have declared their intention to make Thanksgiving dinner this year. More power to 'em! Let the mess, the mayhem, and the fun begin. As soon as I'm done with my nap.

Did You Get the Number of that Truck?

Flat as a piece of shirt cardboard, that's how I've been, but I'm recovering -- have recovered -- and I'm on the way to Dallas, Texas this afternoon, where I'll work in Dallas schools all week. Yesterday Jim and I bought local honey, pumpkins, apples, tomatoes, and boiled peanuts (and that beautiful pink pitcher in the background) at a street fair in Loganville, where we stopped on the way home from a signing at the brand-new indie, The Man in the Moon Bookshoppe in Monroe, Georgia.
I'd driven to Monroe by myself, had a fabulous time with owner Vicki Worsham (who used to work for B&N and then Chapter 11 Bookstores in Atlanta) and her able assistant Allison (left), who teaches at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Customers drifted in and out of the downtown shop while I was there, but we had only one customer looking for a Deborah Wiles book, and that was at the end of our hour together. "Our downtown is being revitalized," said Vicki. "I wish you could have been here last week when 2500 people were here for Monroe Days." I was in Nashville last weekend. And I have learned that a booksigning is not about the number of people who show up the day of the signing. It's about creating a relationship with a bookseller, which is something I dearly love to do. I especially love to support brand-new independent bookstores. Man in the Moon opened its doors eight months ago.

It did my heart good to see members of the Wright Family asking for THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS specifically because they'd loved LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER so much, and because a friend loved ALL-STARS so much she'd given Mrs. Wright a copy of Whitman's LEAVES OF GRASS. Connection, connection, connection. I'm so glad I went to Man in the Moon.

It was such a beautiful fall day -- a wondrously beautiful day -- and I loved being out in it. I took my time driving home (Monroe is about an hour east of where I live in Atlanta) and stopped in Between, Georgia, ha!, at the Between Nursery, where I bought rosemary and creeping fig for the house. I kill houseplants, but I'm determined to try again. Then I stopped at a flea market, where I found this chair (Cleebo has found the chair, too). I've been slowly renovating my house, corner by corner, and finding a treasure or two to put in the new rooms.

I couldn't fit the chair in my car, so I called Jim to see if he might be able to come get it this week while I'm in Dallas. "I can come right now!" he said. And did. What a sweetheart.

My $45 fan-back chair has found a home, and Jim and I found a street fair on the way home, where we bought Nu-Grape and walked in the sunshine for an hour.



We went to supper with friends, then friends came over to make music. Here's Dan on trombone and Jerry on trumpet.

Laurie on washboard:










Jim on tambourine:










The big finale:


Then we all collapsed in laughter. What a cacaphony of sound! What music! I'm grateful for good friends.

Over the past ten days I've also been to Nashville for Southern Festival of Books and to Jekyll Island, Georgia to speak at the COMO conference. I met up with old friends, made new friends, found good books, good food, good times, and I'll share it with you -- I took lots of photos. But let me finish with home, since that seems to be so on my mind right now, as it always is when I'm about to leave it. I'll start another post about travels.

Here's a picture of the far end of the kitchen, where the washer and dryer used to be. We moved them downstairs and have created a pantry here (or Jim Williams has).
You can see the creeping fig here -- hope I don't kill it -- and the yellow boots I bought in Maine years ago when I waded in Rachel Carson's salt pond.

One day I want to write about Rachel Carson. She believed so deeply in the interconnectedness of all things. She wrote: "If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."

Yes.

Follow the Yellow Book Road to the Land of Harcourt

I was going to title this post "I am worried about my cleavage," but that just wouldn't be appropriate, would it? I was on television Wednesday morning and... well... I write books for children, I'm representing children's books, I wore red so I wouldn't look like a cadaver. I didn't think about my cleavage. This is what it has come to, on the road. It's all about the cleavage.

I *would* like to point out that I left only one thing behind yesterday, but it was recovered. I want to say that right off the bat. I didn't leave it at the teevee station. I didn't leave it at Yellow Book Road. I left it at... but wait, I'm gettin' ahead of myself, left me back up.

No, I can't back up. I can hardly make a sentence this morning. I've been on the road for most of the month of September and today I'm going home. No bookstores, no libraries, no schools, no nuthin' but a five-hour plane ride in first class. First Class. I was upgraded last night; Delta Airlines must have been alerted: "She has worked so hard! Let's give her a comfy ride home."

Yesterday morning at this time I was getting ready for publicist Tricia Van Dockum to pick me up at my San Diego hotel and drive me to the Fox News station for an interview about ALL-STARS. "I haven't read the book," said morning show host Mark Bailey in the green room as I tried not to check my cleavage, "I just got it yesterday, but here's what I'm thinking from reading the pitch letter. I got to thinking of Ken Burns' PBS documentary about baseball. It was full of women talking about how much baseball had meant to them as kids -- Doris Kearns Goodwin was one -- and I'm wondering if women approach baseball not only as a game, but also on some sort of emotional level..."

And men don't?

I'm quickly trying to decide if this is sexist or not; I wonder if my cleavage is prompting his question, but I decide Mark is sincere and wants to find purchase for this book so we can talk about it to an adult audience, and I agree that that's one way to pitch the interview -- the social fabric of baseball culture.

When we're in the studio a little later (no, that's not me with Mark at the news desk) and I'm asked that question, I say that baseball is the American game, and that girls wanted to play, too (and I'm thinking of Karen Blumenthal's wonderful book LET ME PLAY, The Story of Title IX: The Law the Changed the Future of Girls in America -- I know I was influenced by this book when I wrote ALL-STARS).

I say that yes, there was an emotional element to baseball when I was a kid -- I wanted to play! In THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS, Ruby Lavender just wants to play baseball. So did an old man who chose not to play, and another old man who wasn't allowed to play.

I also say that I was in love Sandy Koufax. I think I called him gorgeous. There are all kinds of emotions in baseball.
Tricia hands me off to Kia Neri at breakfast. At Yellow Book Road we encounter another sea of students -- 4th graders, all. And I run smack into my team! Here they are, lurking in the aisles, and then gathered together for a photo. This is the children's marketing/publicity team at Harcourt that put together this amazing tour and took me on the road, that shepherds each season of Harcourt books for children. I am indebted to them in ways I well know, and in ways I can't imagine. Barb Fisch says, "We saw you on television!"

How was my cleavage? Let it go, Deb.

During a Q&A after my presentation, a student asks me how I make the finished story into a book and get it into the store. I refer him to the people in the baseball shirts and tell him that it takes a village to make a book, and that these folks -- along with readers -- are the real stars. I mean it most sincerely.

I meet readers and sign books and stock while owner Mary Hayward sells me Marla Frazee's WALK ON for my toddler grandgirl and TOYS GO OUT by Emily Jenkins and Paul Zelinsky for the 7-year-old.
I say goodbye to Mary and Bud and Yellow Book Road and dash to Harcourt's downtown offices with Kia -- we are expected for lunch. After a quick hello to publisher Dan Farley -- is it live or is it Memorex? --
we take ourselves to Dakota, where I get to meet Steve Hamilton and Roseleigh Navarre, the IT folks who set up this blogging tour with me. I am ever-so-grateful -- look at the memories I've been able to capture, thanks to Steve and Roseleigh... I would never have figured this out on my own.

And here we are, the whole gang, telling tour stories and laughing ourselves through lunch -- "I come from a family with a lot of fabulous people," to misquote Comfort Snowberger. Here are some of them. It is so, so good to see them again. Thank you, thank you, thank you, every one of you, for... everything.



I almost leave my camera on the bread plate but remember it. I do leave my shawl under the table, and we have to go back and grab it before the Warwick's signing after lunch. But we do, we get to Warwicks in La Jolla, we sign stock (okay, I sign it), and I meet Janet and Adrian, pictured below.


What a fantastic store. Janet and Barbara (not pictured) worked at The White Rabbit, a beloved children's book store in La Jolla that everyone still misses keenly. I'm so glad they've brought their expertise to 111-year-old Warwicks -- I could have listened to the book conversation for hours.

Purchased at Warwicks: A CD by Pink Martini called "Hang on Little Tomato" -- this was my impulse buy at the register. Also, BEAR SNORES ON by Karma Wilson for the toddler, AIRBORN by Kenneth Oppal and THE ALCHEMYST (Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott for the 12-year-old, TALENTED CLEMENTINE by Sara Pennypacker for the 7-year-old, and LEAVES by David Ezra Stein, for me because I am enchanted by it -- you must check it out.

Another handoff and I'm with my agent, Steven Malk, whom I haven't seen in five years, but with whom I've worked since 1999. I've had more reunions on this west-coast tour, and it has been a good thing. A drive to look at the water and a low-key dinner with the shortstop and his team (Hey, Lindsey!) is the perfect way to end the day and this tour.

Now I gaze around this hotel room -- I must pack yet again. But this time I pack for home. I'm taking back much more than I brought with me, of course, as always happens when people travel. I have some books for the plane, a rad soap, a box of zinnia cards (Thank you, Kathy S.), a tin of terrific chocolates with Sandy Koufax's image on the front (Thanks, Jandy), a sunflower from a fan (Hmm.... logistics....), coffee beans and some CDs Cousin Marcia sneaked into my bag (Patty Griffin), and more memories than I can pack into a suitcase.

I won't wrap up here. I still have SIBA, a regional booksellers conference, to attend in Atlanta this weekend. I'll have dinner tonight with my family and with Walter Mayes, as he's working in Atlanta today as I fly home. So I'll see you on the other side of the country. I loved the left coast. I love home. I love stories... I can't make much more sense than that!

Geezing through Southern California

Here is my Geezer -- I mean, escort -- for the Southern California leg of this tour: Allyn Johnston, Editor and Chief of Harcourt Children's Books. Before Tuesday is out, I'll only be able to see out of one eye and Allyn and I will both be Geezers, punchy and laughing at everything that's not funny.

The subtitle for this entry could be "Allyn and Deborah's Excellent Adventure." I wish I could tell you everything, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you. (My, we ARE getting to the end of the book tour, aren't we??)

I arrived at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana on Monday evening and Allyn met me for dinner -- Marla Frazee stopped by, and that was such a treat I forgot to take photographs. Marla is the artist who made the Aurora County novels come alive with her beautiful cover art. I am forever indebted to her for those transcendent covers.

Allyn and I spent all day together yesterday and we are still speaking. Being a media escort is hard work. Riding with a competent media escort is heaven. I've been lucky this entire trip, but this ride was a real treat.

Whale of a Tale in Irvine is our first stop, where I sign stock and get to know owner Alex Uhl, whom I first met at BEA when LITTLE BIRD won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award for older readers. Whale of a Tale is 20-years-old. It's tucked into a charming courtyard in a shopping center across from UC Irvine.

Alex whips me through the stock, and we take ourselves to Bonita Canyon Elementary School where Alex has set up a school visit with 4th, 5th and 6th graders.

Whoa! 300 kids! I've got my PowerPoint ready, and my singing voice tuned up, and off we go. What good energy was flowing around this room... and you know, I didn't read one word of ALL-STARS. I read from RUBY and LITTLE BIRD, but saw I was running out of time. Somehow, in schools, it's not about the newest book for me, it's about a body of work and personal stories -- kids' stories as much as mine. I figure they'll find the books -- they'll find lots of books.

Here's the fabulous Alex with Ms.N (4th grade teacher), Allyn, and Clyde, who handles the technology (among other things) at Bonita Canyon. Thanks, all, for setting up a terrific school visit.

As we get on our way, Alex gifts me with... a writer's notebook. "To replace the one you left behind," she says. Thank you, Alex. It's beautiful.
At The First Page in Costa Mesa, I'm scheduled for a stock signing only, but I find fans! A scattering of die hard Deborah Wiles readers gladdens my heart. I know I look ragged around the edges (perhaps even "cadaver-like" as he-who-shall-remain-nameless and who is tall called me in San Francisco), but I really am glad to be here. I've just been on the road for a really long time.

Soon I must get busy with stock -- LOTS of stock. "All of these?" I ask manager Kim Newett. "All the hardcovers," she says. "We'll sell them." Wow. It's Kim's wedding anniversary. Flowers arrive. So does her 8-year-old daughter Amelia.

"What a good book for a 7-year-old?" I ask her. She brings me JUDY MOODY GETS FAMOUS by Megan McDonald. Sold. Kim hand sells me THE LOOKING GLASS WARS by Frank Beddor for my 12-year-old Logan.

[Note: As I reread this entry (and most of the time I don't get a chance to reread -- I'm dashing out the door), I was going to edit the sentence below, and decided to leave it in as an example of writing-by-the-seat-of-the-pants weariness -- Kim is not four years old, The First Page is four years old. Sheesh... I'm sure I've got more of this stuff sprinkled through this tour journal -- I don't want to look.]

Only four-years-old, Kim says The First Page is dedicated to giving back. "We give 5 percent of each sale to the school of the customer's choice."

My choice right now is supper. Allyn and I drive north to Santa Fe Springs. Joyce Ryan, who coordinates events for the Santa Fe Springs Library, recommends Geezers for an early supper before our 7pm library event. By now we are hot, wrinkled, hungry, and tired, and glad for a break in the day. We sit by ourselves outside in the shade, away from the televisions and near the fountain, where we get silly. We check email, we call families, we call the office, we call all over the place while picking at the fried zucchini and Caesar salad. Everything is funny in that shimmery, exhausting way that everything gets to be funny. "Welcome to the book tour!" I tell Allyn.

But we pull it together for the library event, which is.... quiet. "We've never done this on a Tuesday night before," says Joyce, as we arrive. And indeed, there are many white chairs set up and maybe 25 people in attendance. I forego slides; we've got an intimate group here, and half of them are children of varying ages. Sweet, sweet children, too.

So I punt. I sing. I read. I talk about stories. I ask questions. Kids answer me. Angels fans boo me when I talk about my beloved Dodgers. It's all affectionate.

As we take our leave, I want to put on my glasses. I sit in Allyn's car and take out my contacts in the sifty dark -- there's an almost full moon in the sky. We have a long drive to San Diego yet ahead of us. I lose my left contact somewhere in the bowels of Allyn's Honda. I knew better -- I knew better! But I am tired, and we are not going to look in the dark for something we can't see, so we begin our trip to San Diego with Allyn yawning and talking and me patting on myself in unmentionable places to see if I can locate that contact as we hurtle down the freeway. We are still laughing. Life is good. Thank you, thank you, Allyn, for taking good care of me on the road yesterday.

And today -- I am home! Home to San Diego, Harcourt's west-coast offices. I'm about to be on local television -- see how calm I am? I sit here with my hair still wet and my clothes still packed, cadaver-like but calm. Can I get away with wearing one contact? Probably not. I'd squint like Long-John Silver. I feel like Long John Silver. TREASURE ISLAND is one of the books House reads to Norwood Boyd in ALL-STARS. It was one of my favorites growing up.

Today: TEEVEE! Then Yellow Book Road in La Mesa, CA at 10am and stock signing at Warwick's in La Jolla at 3pm. School groups at Yellow Book Road, my last school group of the tour.

And a couple of big fat presents: lunch with the marketing folks at Harcourt who put together this fantastic tour, and dinner with my agent. Then home again home again to Atlanta on Thursday, where I'll attend SIBA over the weekend. Let's hang in together a few more days -- I'll try not to lose anything else.

In the Land of Beverly Cleary

I am moving to Oregon. I love the trees, I love the river, the bridges, the city, the neighborhoods, the bookstores, the valley, the people... it's my kind of place.

Here is A Children's Place. It's where we're headed on Monday morning. I nearly give Dependable Cousin Marcia a heart attack as we ride through a bungalowed neighborhood on the way to A Children's Place Books... "Stop!" I shrieked. "Stopppppppp!"

I leap out of the car (yes, I do), and run to the street sign and snap this picture. Which house? I wonder. In which house did Beverly Cleary set her stories? At dinner the night before Eric Kimmel had offered to take me to the park so I could pay homage to Ramona, my hero, but I knew time was too tight for a pilgrimage today.

Marcia, in the meantime, stares at me as if I've lost my mind. "What are you doing?"

"Ramona Quimby!" I say, waving my arms wildly. "Beverly Cleary!" I patterned Ruby Lavender after Ramona -- I wanted to create a timeless story of family and community. I read the Ramona books to death, studied them, took them apart, admired them so -- still do.



A Children's Place smells like the school libraries of my childhood -- full of good books and possibilities, cozy, warm, and inviting. I am wrapped in nostalgia and children, as the fourth and fifth graders from St. Ignacious School and Archibishop Howard School arrive and we set-to for almost an hour of gab, sharing stories.

And here's how I introduce THE AURORA COUNTY ALL-STARS. I talk about trying to connect the things I loved: baseball, Sandy Koufax, Walt Whitman, old people, dogs, dance, tutus, Eudora Welty, secret notes, mysteries, friendship, the Fourth of July, and an old town.


Then I read from the baseball rules, I read a bit of Phoebe Tolbert's column about the pageant, and then, when I've got the stage set, a good half-hour into the program (I've talked about RUBY and LITTLE BIRD, too), I read the first chapter of ALL-STARS. I love those eyes on me. I love the stillness in the room. "Mr. Norwood Rhinehart Beauregard Boyd, age 88, philanthropist, philosopher, and maker of mystery, died on a June morning in Mable, Mississippi at home in his bed."
Then, when we're all laughing at Finesse and her overly-dramatic moves to entice the baseball team to be in her pageant, I read rule number one of "How to Hit the Ball" -- "Remove all tiaras."

In the picture below, you can see Cousin Marcia knitting -- she's in the red. I hadn't seen Marcia Hindman in 30 years. She moved from Mississippi to Portland and began painting. I moved from Mississippi to Maryland and began writing. And now our paths cross again -- we have picked up right where we left off... as if there had been no years between us. Stories, stories, stories. We've talked each other's ears off. And we share something else in common, it must be a family trait: I don't leave anything behind on this day, but Marcia leaves her knitting at A Children's Place. Hahahaha. Oops.

I hope these pictures give you a sense of A Children's Place. Look at how the paintings on the walls bring the outdoors in and surround you with a sense of place. Portland has a definite sense of place that I resonate to, as does A Children's Place. Lynn Kelley started A Children's Place 32 years ago in Portland. "She sewed good seeds," says Gina Greenlaw, "and Pam took over four years ago. She's wonderful." She is.

Here are Pam Erlandson (left) and Gina Greenlaw. Kira was absent today; she's on vacation with her family in Bellingham, where I appeared at Village Books in Saturday -- and so did Kira! "I wanted to see you," she said. I am so touched. Val had to scoot out before I could get her photo, but know that the staff at A Children's Place is dedicated and knowledgeable and sold me good books: CLEMENTINE by Sarah Pennypacker (fabulous artwork by Marla Frazee) and THE SISTERS GRIMM, Book One, The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley and Peter Ferguson for my 7-year-old, VAMPIRATES, Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper for the 12-year-old, and DOG by Matthew Van Fleet for the toddler. Just right.

Yes, I want to move to Portland and hang out near Klickitat Street and visit A Children's Place every day. We sold out of ALL-STARS, I signed the backlist, and then tootled with Dependable Cousin Marcia to Powell's, where I signed stock, then headed for the airport. Next stop will be southern California.

I've been a true-blue Powell's web-customer for years. It was a delight to walk into the store I'm doing business with and to see all those books. "Our stock is 70-percent used books," said Chris Faatz as he led me to the Deborah Wiles shelf. Here are Chris and Karen Schnieder, who works in children's.

Cousin Marcia is quite an artist. We stopped at her studio and at the School of Nursing to see some of her paintings before we scooted to the airport. Marcia's work is stunning. And now she knows Ramona Quimby, another stunning work of art.




I'm south of Los Angeles today. Whale of a Tale at 9am, then a school visit, a stock signing at First Page, and then a library event at the Santa Fe Springs library at 7pm -- do come if you're in the area. We're heading into World Series days and I'm gonna talk about baseball and that symphony true.