Our long anticipated trip to Alaska brought either serendipity (a happy coincidence) or lagniappe (something additional or extra). You may decide. Whatever it was, it continues.
On July 13, 2007, in Fairbanks, Alaska, our young server asked a question before she took our breakfast order. “Are you a writer?” She had spotted my notebook and pen. I admitted to the charge. She followed with, “My mother is a writer about Alaska for children.” I got her mother’s name (Debbie S. Miller) and acknowledged our connection with a mental image of her mother creating coloring books and puzzles about Alaska given out at visitor’s centers to keep kids occupied for five or ten minutes.
The server efficiently waited on us for breakfast. We asked advice on what to do with our day since we were a full day ahead of our tour group. She recommended the Museum of the North as the best thing to do and told us about a shuttle at 2 PM making the rounds of the city and stopping at good spots to see. The evaluation of that advice from my trip diary: “Wow! We stayed two hours, but I could have spent a day – or maybe a week. The museum is state-of-the-art with well laid out displays in glass cases that frequently lend themselves to seeing both the front and the back of the exhibits. The exhibits cover prehistoric fossils, gold rush times, Alaskan pipeline, wildlife, and more. It is the best museum I have ever seen, and I have seen more than a few.”
Serendipity/lagniappe came in the museum gift shop when I discovered that Debbie S. Miller had written more than slight entertainment for kids of tourists. A wide array of beautiful picture books pictured animals and nature that are unique to Alaska in clever ways. Returning to my trip diary, “One of the salespeople came over to see if she could help. I told her I was looking for Debbie Miller’s books. She not only helped me find them but gave advice on which ones to get for grandsons Sam and Jack. It seems Debbie Miller had visited her daughter’s school. Her daughter is a big Miller fan so she knew the books well.”
Serendipity/lagniappe came again when I returned home and convinced my Delta Kappa Gamma chapter to sponsor a week of author visits to South Mississippi by Debbie solely on the strength of meeting her daughter and the recommendation from the salesperson at the museum gift shop. That turned into a week of corralling the students’ and Debbie’s enthusiasm for her presentations in time to get her to the next one.
Now serendipity/lagniappe has struck again. Debbie’s new book, Goodnight Sounds, for even younger children, spans our country instead of Alaska. It begins and ends with the foghorns at the Golden Gate Bridge, as a go-to-sleep sound. In between are farm sounds, city sounds, wilderness sounds, and family sounds. It is a bedtime read aloud for a toddler who can repeat the sounds and pick the one that he or she most likes to hear. The adult who snuggles the child may pick their own as I did with the train, even though my train passed our house in the country rather than in the city.
My first choice for my blog readers is that you have a little one ready to share this experience. My second choice is that you will be invited to a baby shower for which you need the perfect gift. My copy will soon be in the mail to my great grandson Myles. I expect pictures of cozy reading in return.