The first couple of days duking it out with this flu, I almost forgot that there were sweet things about a sick kid. My Small One lay in her dark room with a wet bandana over her eyes and whimpered when I touched her.
Not sweet, just sad.

But yesterday, she re-discovered the joys of being read to.
All.day.long.
My mom was here for part of it, so we split the duties (if you can call them that).
I got a little hoarse and my eyes burned, but boy-oh-man, is there anything nicer than having your wee one snuggle up to you and sit in the space created by a good book?

And today, she re-discovered the joys of old toys.
As my kids grow up and get busy, things like Lincoln Logs get relegated to top shelves and backs of closets.
But on sick days they come back out.
And there is nothing I love more than a whole compound of Lincoln Log homes populated with PlayMobil people.

Nothing.

Except for maybe reading aloud…

Last week we were standing in front of a banned books display
and my daughter said, "So they ban, like, the books that people really love?"

I know, right?

Doesn’t make a lick of sense.

It’s Banned Books Week, friends.
Read one, why don’t you!

This Saturday, the creative and passionate folk at BookPeople
helped me launch All the World with true Texas verve.

Piles of people came — including lots and lots of little ones, which is the whole point!

We had yummy food, a drawing for prizes, and incredibly beautiful prayer flags for people to decorate
(thanks to my best gals Kath and Bern at Future Craft Collective).

(Most of the cookies were already gone by the time we snapped a picture!)

(See those pretty flags — they say hope, peace, love and trust — big words in the book — and they’re large versions of the little ones people decorated. Swoon….)

I read the book — storytime style — and my lovely (and computer savvy) husband sat behind me and projected the book onto a big screen so nobody would miss the exquisite Marla Frazee art:

And then lots of very, very patient readers got in a signing line that just moved me beyond measure.

Today is mostly a pictorial post because there are no words for how grateful I am that my book was given such a vigorous and delightful birthday party. Thank you, friends!

This morning I’ll be a chaperone for an art museum field trip.

Our fifth graders do this amazing program that takes them to the museum 4 times over the course of a number of months, and they study the full museum lifecycle — from artist to curator to docent, and everything in between. My tall one went off this morning sort of vibrating with excitement.

The museum is The Blanton Museum of Art on the campus of UT-Austin.
It is lovely and I cannot wait to spend time there with a bunch of 10- and 11-year-olds.

My personal connection to the Blanton was an inspring ekphrastic poetry project I participated in a couple of years ago. Many of of us were invited to choose a piece from the permanent collection and write in response. The results were pretty dynamite.

From that show, there’s this from Austin poet, letterpresser and friend Judy Jensen.

Chloris and Zephyrus, Revisited

After Sebastiano Ricci’s Flora
By Judy Jensen

She seduced me. Just look at her –
flanked by admirers, she glows as if
lit from within. A lily among reeds.
I can barely lift my gaze, shamed, even
as I recall her scent.

(Go here to read the rest and see the original art…)

(Go here to explore other poems and their inspiration…)

I have to head to the museum now. Happy Friday, friends…

I usually run in the dark.
In part because it’s bloody hot where I live and so it’s best to exercise before the sun comes up.
Also, it’s when I can fit it in.

And I’m not the only one, you guys, so stop with that rolling-of-the-eyes, what-a-nutbag business.

Most mornings, I meet one or two or sometimes three of my best running buddies down there and we pass (or, let’s get real here, are passed by) numerous other dark runners as we move along the trail.

Except that some of them aren’t reallly dark runners.
Some of them wear headlights.

If they’re coming at you, you just sort of have to squint and then carry on.
If they’re coming from behind, you get this monster-mash-at-the-roller-rink strobe light effect.
It’s kind of disconcerting.
One of my running partners gets a little seasick.

This morning I was down there alone so I really had time to think about those lights.

Why do they bug me so? 

The squinting is a minor inconvenience at best and I don’t actually get seasick from them, even though I actually am so susceptible that I got seasick while snorkling once.

So.

It turns out that for me, it’s not the physical upset but the mental and emotional intrusion of those bobbley little lamps. Because the other great thing about running in the dark — besides the fact that it’s not 200 degrees and it doesn’t cut into the workday — is that there is some sort of suspension of time and space. You can lose yourself down there — in intimate conversation or in deep thought, in hard work or in effortless meditation. I swear, there are days I’m not aware I’m running ’til I’m halfway done because I’ve transcended the bodily movement and am in some swirly-whirly headspace that feels an awful lot like a really good day with words.

Intuitive. Self-propelled. Revealing.

And I really don’t want anyone to bust in on that with battery power.

‘Specially when the sun is on its way up, all on its own…
 

Austin Community College (where I teach) is sponsoring a two-month all-out literary extravaganza called The Big Read.

It’s actually an NEA program and ACC is one of this year’s participating communities.

The school chose the book Sun, Stone and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories as the centerpoint of their program, and they’re hosting readings, panel discussions and bookclubs as a way to engage and inspire readers.

Lucky us that one of the stories — My Life with the Wave, by Octavio Paz — has been turned into a children’s book.
Yep. Thanks to author Catherine Cowan, ACC’s Big Read has a kids component.
I was the lucky reader plucked from the pile to take the picture book version to libraries this month and next, and it has been a joy.

Today, for example.

When I introduce the book, I say, "I have to warn you. You need a wild imagination to get into this book. Do you guys have wild imaginations?"

A 2nd grade boy called Seth rolled his eyes at me and said, "Ma’am, we’re kids!"

"So does that mean you automatically have wild imaginations?" I asked.

EVERYONE rolled their eyes at me now. Duh, Ma’am!

"But not grown ups?" I asked.

"Nope," said Seth. "Because of taxes and stuff."

And then later, when the kids were doing their own watercolors — inspired by the book — a girl called Irene waved me over to look at her painting. "Look," she said, "it’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!"

"Wow," I said. "Very cool. I’ve looked but I’ve never actually found one of those. Have you?"

"Yep," she said. "I got lucky one day."

Just like that.
All matter-of-fact.

 
I kind of know what she means.
I got lucky one day, too.

This was one of those weeks for me when all things converged.

Conversations overlapped, unspoken needs got answered, everyone (it seemed) held up mirrors for one another.

The topics at hand included success, cancer, sleeplessness, politics, houseguests, fear, running, education, food and technology. It was a busy week.

And still, the answer to pretty much every question was the same.

There is spiritual in the actual, sacred in the ordinary, ideas (as William Carlos Williams would say) in things.

This was a good reminder, when so many things seem impossible to grasp and my body either threatens to sink or implode or combust in the buzz of it all. It was a good reminder to look around and notice what beauty is at hand right here and now. It was a good reminder to eat my bowl of fruit and pour my cup of coffee, kiss my family and kiss them again, and do the work that makes my heart sing. It would be silly, after a week like mine, to ignore a reminder like that. 

The Inner History of a Day
by John O’Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

(Read the rest here…)

(Hear a lovely interview with John O’Donohue and recitation of some of his poems in his warm Irish brogue here…)

Happy Friday, my friends.
Namaste.

I spent a little time hanging out in my Small One’s classroom this morning.
She’s in third grade and has a different teacher than her sister had, so I don’t know him well yet.

When I was there, they were working on math.

He had some simple addition problems up on the chalkboard but I realized pretty soon that they were just illustrations for the bigger point he was trying to make.

"Memorizing basic math facts is always a good idea," he said, "because you’ll be able to figure  things out quickly — even more complex things — for the rest of your lives." (This is when kids think, "Yeah, right, like you need to do math problems as a grown up. Ha.")

But then he went on to say, "But if you don’t have the basics memorized, that’s okay. There are a lot of strategies you can use." And he proceeded to share a bunch of them — everything from using fingers and hash marks, to adding 10 and substracting 1 if you’re supposed to be working with a 9. And so on.

"What really matters," he said, "is that you figure out which strategies work for you!"

Hallelujah, I thought.
(Me with the crazy little math tricks that help me figure out tips and tax and percentages and such…)
Praise the teachers who tell kids there is more than one way to do things ‘right’.

Hello friends…

When I blitzed about All the World a few weeks ago, I shared some of the reviews we’d gotten so far.
Since then, there have been a few more.

The book is out now, so some of the happiest buzz  just comes from people I know, seeing it on the shelf at their local booksellers. Sometimes they send me photos and since I’m just sitting here in my little nook in Austin, Texas, it thrills me no end.

Still, I’ll keep that sorta stuff to myself since you’d be understandably dis-interested in what my mother-in-law or second cousin or college roomate is snapping with her iphone.

Instead, I’ll share the bigger, happier bits of news that my editor shares with me:

All the World is the only picture book on this fall’s Top Ten Kids’ Indie Next List.

This is what I did when I heard about that: !!!!!!!!

Because the Indie Next List is by and for independent booksellers, and you know how we feel about independent booksellers. Seated at the same table as librarians when the extra big and caramely desserts come around. Really. They are our people, people…

Also, we were given a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly. It was very, very, very nice and said things like my text and Marla’s art "create an empathic, welcoming whole."

The people who write these reviews make poetry of their jobs, I swear they do.
It’s really moving and inspiring to me.

The Publishers’ Weekly review was the book’s fourth star — which feels like an honest to goodness constellation — and it’s a daunting honor to be included on such careful, thoughtful lists.

(Other reviews for All the World include this one in Horn Book (I cried)).

Run, don’t walk, people.
Registration is now open for the biggest conference of the year (the biggest conference ever??) this side of New York City.
Seriously.

As you may know, Austin, Texas, is not a place to take other places’ grandness sittin’ down.
So it’s no wonder that our resident miracle worker — Regional Advisor Tim Crow — has created Destination Publication — an all-out, all-day affair, January 30th, 2010.

I am sooooo excited about this conference because it includes the the following folk:

1. My dear friend and genius illustrator of my new book All the World, Ms. Marla Frazee
2. My dear friend and genius author of the new book Operation Yes, Ms. Sara Lewis Holmes
3. My dear friend and genius author of Hattie, Big Sky and Two Bobbies, Ms. Kirby Larson
4. Amazing editors from not one, not two, but three houses
5. Not one, not two, but three amazing agents
6. Plus, a bunch of the most accomplished authors I know.

I’m going to join Marla for an author-illustrator chat but I’m also just going to be soakin’ up all the goodness.
You should, too.
C’mon.
You know you want to…