American Library Association Convention in Washington, DC

Oh, well, I didn't get to see Edie at ALA. I looked for her at the Newbery/Caldecott dinner, but the place was packed. I, however, enjoyed myself at the conference. Here is what I did:

Friday--In the morning, I walked the floor. In the afternoon I spent my regular five hours with my editor discussing Picasso and other stories I had sent her. My editor and I ate dinner at The Fish Grille with the marketing director and illustrator Bill Thomson. Later my husband joined us for drinks.

Saturday--My husband and I spent the day touring DC. It was over 100 degrees. Between that and all the marble at the Supreme Court, I thought I was going to faint.

Sunday--I received the Pura Belpre Honor Award for Diego: Bigger Than Life at a ceremony held at the gorgeous Mayflower Renaissance Hotel. My sister surprised me by being there with two of our friends. Harold Underdown and his family, and the daughter of a good friend of mine came too! David Diaz and I signed. Then we all ran to changed clothes to go to the Newbery/Caldecott.

Monday--Tom Gonzalez and I signed Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court Justice. That evening Marshall Cavendish threw a dinner party for me and the Pura Belpre committee. It was held at a gorgeous Spanish restaurant.

Get Kids Reading This Summer

Memories of Camp

Several weeks ago I discovered a letter from 1966 that my eleven-year-old sister had written to me, her five-year-old brother, while she was at Bay Lake Camp in Deerwood, Minnesota. In bright red pen she wrote:

David,
I miss you very much. I can't wait to be home. I am not going to camp ever again in my whole life. I don't like the camp very much. I wish it was Friday at 5:00. Love Debbie. P.S. I hate camp.

True to her words, my sister never again attended camp. And whether or not it was because of her letter, I never had the slightest desire to go to camp either... at least, until I became an adult.

For the past four years I've worked as an instructor at Jonathan Rand's Author Quest: "The Definitive Writing Camp for Serious Young Writers." Perhaps "dedicated" would be a better word to describe these 10-14 year-olds than "serious," especially since the writing workshop I led this year was all about humor and was anything but serious.

What will I remember most about this year's camp? It might be the young man who had been in special education classes the year before, but received one of the camp's top writing awards for the crowd-pleasing story he had written while at Author Quest. It might be the quiet little girl who had the whole camp roaring with laughter as she read her story about the attack of the Alien Apples from Outer Space. Or it might be the young lady I've watched grow from a shy writer several years ago to the poised young woman confident to share her words with the rest of us around the campfire at night.

I'm pretty sure none of these campers wrote a letter home like my sister's. Just the opposite, when camp ended this past Sunday, there were many campers who seemed reluctant to leave.

So, how about you? What are your memories of summer camp?

Poetry Friday Interview

Check out Part 1 where I am interviewed for the blog Author Amok http://authoramok.blogspot.com/. Part 2 at noon on Friday.

Lazy Days of Summer

Even potatoes need a break. For the summer we will be posting randomly when we have something to share, then will start up in the fall again. And if you need some new reading material, I'm happy to announce my new YA novel The Gardener released on May 25th and is available everywhere.
Happy Summer!

The End

A giant black mamba emerged from the grass. Even though the creature was thicker than the boy’s skinny thighs, he raised the rusty shovel over his head and struck, pounding at the beast as the other villagers watched. But the snake would not be felled. The alien rose up, standing taller than any of the humans, and poised to strike.
Realizing he would not win, the boy backed off, waving the shovel in a slow half-arc to get the snake’s attention. And then the boy began to run, glancing back just enough to see if the creature would follow. And it did, so fast the boy tossed aside the shovel as his legs churned toward his one hope.
The boy reached the cliff and stopped, breathless as he turned to face his pursuer.
The mamba closed in, but the boy stood firm, remembering all the heinous things the snake had done to his loved ones. The boy backed closer and closer to the edge, so close that the falls below nearly deafened him.
Just as the mamba struck, the boy wrapped both arms around the snake and pushed off, smiling as he soared over the side with the enemy, who would never hurt his family again.

Part Nine

Alicia Flea, a scardey cat, was ferociously afraid of water.
But water wasn’t the only thing she was afraid of.
She was afraid of knives, penguins, razor blades, the Michelin Man, tapioca pudding, and most frightening of all: tropical snakes.
She heard a slithering behind her and imagined she was inventing the noise to terrify herself.
It couldn’t be.
No.
It was.
A gigantic black mamba emerged from the grass.