It’s stunning to me how quickly our family pace changes when August turns to September each year.
It may just be indication of how seriously we take our summer downtime, but I fear it’s also that we squeeze almost too much into our lives September through May.

The thing is, we love what we do — all of us.
The Shakespeare and swimming, the pick up basketball games and women’s groups, the library events and 10K runs.
We love it all.

It’s just that there are four of us and 7 short days each week and sometimes, in order to get to do what we love, we have to hurry. Which is fine occasionally, but boy-oh-man, you wouldn’t want to make a habit of it.

I am ever mindful of the need to sloooooow it down, catch my breath, reassess and say the occasional No, Thank You.
But sometimes, I need a little reminder. We all do.

Here were mine this week:

My Tall One’s first formal Scrabble game.
Scrabble is a sloooow game, requiring patience, good humor and total presence.
I love it…

And this poem, by Marie Howe:

Hurry

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?   
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?   

Read the rest of the poem here… and subscribe to American Life in Poetry while you’re at it.
Make time for it.
You’ll be glad you did…

1. Amy Bowllan is hosting a series called Writers Against Racism at School Library Journal.

It is really really really (times ten) good.

I kind of wanted to binge on it, but after reading the moving and thoughtful post by my dear friend (and Poetry Princess) Tanita Davis I decided they needed to be absorbed one at time. I’m working my way through my friends first (Tanita, Varian, Francisco, Don), and then will make sure I catch all the others.

I would pull out lots of inspiring quotes and excerpts for you, but I really just want you to go read them yourselves.
But, okay.
Just this one:

"Racism is no match for a strong family." — Don Tate

2. Now then. Speaking of Tanita, she’s one of two Poetry Princess authors on my current Read As Soon As Humanly Possible list and I think you should add them to your list, too:

Mare’s War, by Tanita Davis —
The story of a woman who served in the Women’s Army Corp during WWII and the road trip she takes with her now-teenage granddaughter. Is that a cool premise or what? Plus, it’s told in alternating viewpoints — my favorite! Tanita’s a poet’s storyteller so I’m sure Mare’s War is going to be a lovely and wholly satisfying read…

Operation Yes, by Sara Lewis Holmes — 
Air Force families, improv theater and one amazing teacher make me want to say Yes! Sara’s been a military mom to two amazing young people for 20-some years, so she knows what she’s talking about here. Plus, she is a write-from-all-the-way-down-at-the-bottom-of-her-heart kind of gal and although I haven’t read it yet, I’ve got my tissues ready…

3. I loooooved this article about Spike Jonze in last weekend’s NY Times Magazine. It’s about making the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. You may think it’s a bad idea to make a movie of one of our most beloved children’s books ever, and I’m not totally convinced myself yet. But what gets said in this piece about creative freedom and risk-taking and a deeply-rooted respect for the emotional terrain of childhood is pretty profound. Don’t you think?

Well.
Mercy.
I had quite a day yesterday.

Our book came out.

There was this awesome post at Jama Rattigan’s alphabet soup and this awesome interview
at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

There were these world balloons from my sister.

But the highlight was popping into a bookstore to do a little recognizance while my Tall One was at swim team.

(Does a book release mean that the book is actually out there, y’know, in stores?
Inquiring minds wanted to know.)

My Small One and I stole in stealthily.
We feigned interest in cookbooks.
We sauntered toward the children’s section.
We stopped and looked at the maps.

And then…
she spied it first.

I followed with my cell phone open:

Wahoo!

And just as I was about to buy myself a copy to celebrate, I ran into a woman I know who happens to be a teacher.
So she bought one!
For her class.
I signed it to Tina and the Golden Lions.

Wow.

Please let this serve as my official thank you note to Jama and Jules and Tina  and my sister and all of you who cheered and whooped and hollered with me. It made for a really, really, really special day.

Plus (as if that’s not enough), yesterday marked the launch of my brand new much improved way prettier and more functional web site!!!!

My very dear friend Shannon Lowry of Round Robin Press designed it in her lovely, whimsical and inimitable way (thank you, Shannon!)… my other very dear friend Sarah Bork Hamilton is the mighty fine eye behind the bio pic (thank you, Sarah!)… and  faster-than-a-speeding bullet Jenny Medford of Websy Daisy built the site (thank you, Jenny!).

I hope you’ll stop by for a visit and to sign up for my email list so I can keep you apprised of happenings.
Not like daily tweets or anything.
Just the very occasional happening.
That I think you might be interested in.
I promise…

Yesterday was my Tall One’s birthday.
She’s eleven.
Which blows my mind.
Naturally.

Today is my book’s birthday.
Which also blows my mind.
Of course.

In fact, I’m a little too throat-lumpy to say much about it right now, except that I will be forever grateful to Marla Frazee who created art that truly breathes and sings for this book, and to Allyn Johnston, our  everso perceptive and attentive editor who did everything just plain right.

And speaking of gratitude.
I cannot believe what Jama Rattigan did to welcome All the World this morning.
Jama — thank you.
When is someone going to give that woman a "Most Generous Person on the Internet" trophy????
Seriously.

And because my coffee cup runneths over in a big fat way, there’s also this from 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
Jules — thank you.
You can kinda see why I’m getting all teary over here… and chuckley, too, because Jules is just flat-out funny.
(Which is only one of the approximately 700 reasons they’ve been nominated for Best Kidlit Blog at Book Blogger Appreciation Week!)

I am going to go do breakfast dishes and make beds and other grounding activities now because otherwise I might just up and float away and my family might be sad to come home and find me gone…

Namaste…

This week was my week to talk about books I read over the summer.
I think I might have to carry on and do a few more next week since Darcy Pattison’s declared it
Random Acts of Publicity Week.

Some people come up with the swellest ideas.

(Plus, I missed posting on Thursday and if I was going to do a week on books I really should’ve done a whole week.
I don’t know what happened to Thursday.
Did you guys have a Thursday at your house?
I think there might have been sun spots or something that zapped Thursday clean away.)

So, this may or may not be my last summer reading post.
Either way, I can say with conviction that I have really, really loved Donald Hall for quite some time.
And this summer I got that confirmed him by reading his memoir, Unpacking the Boxes.

It’s not so much that I admire every single thing he’s ever done or yearn for a life exactly like his (though there is a sacred sense of the idyllic in his New Hampshire writing life); it’s more that the honesty of growing into and through the poet that he became is disarmingly beautiful and moving.

There is loss and sorrow, of course, because he’s 80 and life works that way — in his case, the greatest grief reserved for his beloved wife, the poet Jane Kenyon who died of cancer. But there’s also tremendous good humor and lovely observations of the ordinary. It reminds me of the beginning bits of Stephen King’s  On Writing, where he just recounts who he was as a boy as sort of breadcrumb clues to who he became. Only Hall’s feels completely without pretense and, while not necessarily self deprecating, pure.

Today, on Poetry Friday, I thought I’d share Hall’s poem Ox Cart Man, which he later adapted and turned into one of my favorite picture books. Enjoy…

Ox Cart Man

by Donald Hall

(Read the rest here….)

In case you’re just joining me, I’m posting all about reading this week…
the act of and the books themselves.

I love a lot of books, I really do, but only a few totally and completely wallop me.

This summer, the book that blew me away was YA novel Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork.

Marcelo is a tender, compassionate novel about the truly good-hearted title character negotiating his own challenges with Asperger’s Syndrome, and a summer job at his father’s law firm. And that, dear reader, would be enough. I assure you. Marcelo’s voice is so unique and appealing, and the summer job so jarring that I would’ve read straight through that story and been happy as a little duck.

But noooo…. Stork doesn’t stop there. He lays in a narrative thread of intrigue and moral outrage and suspense. Oh, right, and then how about some biblial allusions and a crisis of faith? And you want a little romance? Let’s toss some of that in there, too.

Mercy, Mr. Stork, you leave us wanting for nothing!

This book got eversomuch bigger than I expected and it held every bit of itself quite gracefully. I never felt conscious of the juggles the author must’ve been pulling off; instead I was just lost in story and crying quite a bit. (I am always so happy to get a good book and a good cry taken care of at the same time…)

I don’t want to say more for fear of spoiling it for anyone. This book is full of energy and humor and passion and love. And If you haven’t read it yet, you ought to…

I’m pretty sure I’ll never run out of stuff to read since my bedside stacks are always toppling over.

Lucky me…

So, as always, I read a lot this summer and nothing was more fun than the books written by friends…

Here were some of my faves:

Eternal is Cynthia Leitich Smith’s second gothic fantasy novel (the first was Tantalize). It tells the tale of a teenager moving into the realm of Dracul and, subsequently, her own power. And, at the same time, we’re introduced to the girl’s love-struck and slightly bumbling guardian angel. Whoa, boy, this is one to rip through!

I’ve always been such a stodg with my "I like realistic fiction"  hoo-ha, but I’m thinking of changing my tune because this was some seriously gruesome fun. I love the cover, I love the alternating viewpoints, and I love being totally shocked at the end of a good book!

P.J. Hoover’s The Emerald Tablet  puts the final nail in my "only realistic fiction" coffin. Mercy, gals, you can create some crazy worlds! Love the tele-this and tele-that used by our hero to get stuff done, love the Hogwartsian school setting and love the fact that this is just number one in a trilogy! Bring it on!!

The Day-Glo Brothers is just the first of many impeccably researched biographies Chris Barton is going to bring to young readers some day. And thank goodness for that, because this book is so interesting and so charming and so gosh-darn poppy-hipster looking that it just made me wish I could hang out with Bob and Joe Switzer — the guys who invented Day-Glo. And I think that’s what a good biography’s supposed to do. Since I can’t, I’m just awfully grateful I get to occasionally hang out with Chris!

I really, really, really loved Linda Urban’s first novel, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, and dang if I didn’t love her first picture book just as much. I loved it because the text is so lyrical and so funny at the same time, I loved it because Henry Cole’s art is clean and simple but sooooo expressive, and I loved it because the message to kids is so spot-on. But I mostly loved it because Mouse reminds me eversomuch of my very own Small One, in looks and sensibility, and it’s good to see her getting her day in the sun. So to speak.

Me with You is Kristy Dempsey’s first picture book but there are more on the way and it’s no wonder. That girl can rhyme, I tell you. This is just exactly the kind of book I read to my girls over and over and over again in the rocking chair when they were wee. And the only thing that makes me mad about it is that it wasn’t available then! The lyrics, dreamy… the message, dreamy… and that bear pair? Dreamy, dreamy, dreamy…

What an abundance of riches!
More tomorrow, ya’ll…

This week, I want to post about some of my very best summer reading, from picture books to adult novels.
Revving up to that, a few thoughts (and links to thoughts) on reading…

This little rant from the NY Times on how "nothing can measure how a young life can be changed by literature."

And this related article on a new model for "the reading workshop."

This old post of mine (brought to mind when we went to see Wicked and decided "Ozmopolitan" was going to have to become part of our family lexicon).

And another old post about school visits, which I’ll be starting up again soon after a summer hiatus.

That’s all for today.
Off to read for a bit…

Earlier this week, I enjoyed some good email banter with a few smart friends.
One of my emails consisted wholly of the line, "Pynchon. Yes. Duh."
Which admittedly doesn’t sound very elevated but I promise you there was substance before and after.

Anyway, my friend Amy wrote back and dared me to write a poem starting with that line.
I took that as a sign that I choose my friends well. I mean, receiving dares to write poems? The luck!
And, not one to avoid provocation, I’ll share here this little ditty, hot off the press:

V.

Pynchon. Yes. Duh.
His name on the tip
of my tongue, starts
with a P, wrote that book
you loved in college. We argued
about it, remember?
We saw that movie
you compared it to, we argued
in front of the theater
and then for two more days.
That sort of thing
used to really matter.
Didn’t it?

— Liz Garton Scanlon, 2009

Today I took a 3rd grader and a 5th grader to school, which is just flat out hard for me to fathom.
Honestly, this is the last year of elementary school for my eldest and since she was JUST BORN, there must be some weird time-space discontinuum thing going on.

The principal offered Koffee and Kleenex to the new kindergarten parents and darn if I didn’t think about nosing in on that.

The thing is, when they are in school I DO get more work done.
And the routine serves us all well in some ways.

The house is tidier.
Exercise is steadier.
Bedtimes are… well. There actually are bedtimes.

But sometimes I think bedtimes and tidy houses and work are overrated.
Y’know? 

I mean, compared to kayaking.
And dominoes.
And ice cream cones.
And campfires.
And cannonballs.
And libraries.
And turtle catching.
And musicals.
And boogie boarding.
And naps.
And postcards.
And stuff like that.

All with a couple of the most enthusiastic little people on the planet.

But it’s almost September now and those little people were nearly popping with enthusiasm as we rolled up to school this morning. "I love summer and I love winter, too," said Small One.
Which is really pretty hilarious when you consider it was 103 degrees again today.
But I know what she means.

She’s ready.
Ready for another year of exploration and accomplishment and connection and fun.
And so are the other happy kids I saw  stomping into school today with their new haircuts and tennis shoes.

Who am I to put the brakes on things?

Bring it on, I say.
Bring the new teachers and the dioramas and the book fair and the sleepovers and the kickball games and the morning assemblies and the permission slips and the monkey bars. Heck, bring on the times tables.

Bring it all on, and I’ll get some popsicles to serve after school…