"It was a beautiful place we came to," he said, skipping over the endless roads.  "Nothing like the true Delta.  Nothing.  It was like the days in spring when you find everything has flowered and nothing has begun to die, so it seems that's the way the world must go on:  always just breaking into blossom, and the air full of soft, sweet smells, and ( Read more... )

I slogged through Small Gods by Terry Pratchett and in the end it managed to delight me and surprise me a little bit.  The Discworld books are always fun and almost always make me stop and think in the end.  This time it was about faith.  The religions in the book are contrived; mocking the type of religion a lot of people have, where faith is only ( Read more... )

The azaleas in my front yard are blooming.


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I want to tell everyone in the world about my awesome, awesome, AWESOME school book club.

After
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Yay for two-hour delays!

Guess what was waiting for me at work?  A box of books from

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I've said for years that I'd like to live closer to the coast but I don't know if I really could. My hair was a curly, frizzy mess the entire time I was there. Someone said, "I didn't know hair could stick out in so many directions." My hair and I are back to normal today.

Saw three lighthouses and climbed to the top of one (257 steps, yes, as tall ( Read more... )

The last bit, I promise.

The Printz Reception
This was quite different from the banquet the night before.  Informal and more relaxed, it was held in the huge auditorium with about 700 people there.  The chair of the Printz committee was not irritating like the Newbery lady, though she sighed often as if she were too tired to go on.  Perhaps she was, ( Read more... )

A continuation from the previous post.  The YALSA YA Breakfast and the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet.

YALSA YA Breakfast
On Sunday my traveling companions and I went to the Young Adult Author Breakfast, sponsored by YALSA.  We had no idea what to expect and as we entered we saw that each table had two spaces with signs that said "Reserved For Author."  ( Read more... )

This post is long overdue, and many have heard some of my stories by now, but I promised a post about the ALA Annual Conference and here it is.

Driving in DC reminded me that I am very happy to live in my smallish city where it isn't hard to get around, and parking at your hotel doesn't cost $23.00 a day, and the hotels don't charge for wireless ( Read more... )