Writing Rule # 2

I’ve heard this rule voiced many ways, but I like the way Isabel Allende puts it. “Show up.” She contends that if she shows up long enough writing will happen.

The trouble is, whether your instrument is a computer or a long college-ruled legal pad with pencils or pens, it doesn’t call you to come and sit. Neither holds out threats or rewards. They just sit there, waiting. Good intentions of writing that poem or Great American Novel pave that road you’ve heard about that may not really lead to hell, but intentions alone won’t lead you to a blog, much less a poem or novel.

When people find out that I write, they often say, “I always thought I’d write a (insert picture book, novel, poem, memoir, etc.). I know better than to ask, “So, what’s keeping you?” I know about that. I have my own list of interruptive temptations. You may notice that cleaning house is not listed. That is not a temptation.
•    Weeds are taking my day lilies and coneflowers.
•    Email or Facebook might have an important post from a friend – or a grandchild.
•    Laundry needs to be done.
•    A friend wants to go to lunch.
•    I borrowed a mystery to read from the library.
•    There’s a new recipe in yesterday’s paper for blackberry jam cake.
•    And did you know you can find free jigsaw puzzles to solve on your computer?

So how does a writer talk herself (or himself) into showing up? You could get a lot of answers, but I’ll share the one that has worked for me. I came to realize that in spite of my self-proclaimed title as “writer,” some weeks passed with nothing to show for it – maybe not even a thank-you note. Beginning in 2004, I started tracking what I did each day making notes in the calendar I received for my contribution to the Smithsonian. I list writing that I’ve actually done in the day-by-day entry with an arrow added for projects that last over several days – only for the times I actually “showed up.” Since reading is also the work of a writer, I record the books I’ve read at the top of the page with some comment about my level of enjoyment.

Comparing the entry for one week of 2004 at the top and the entry for the similar week in 2014 in my photograph is typical for what has happened to my consistency since I began the visual record of how many times I showed up. True vacations are noted, but may also have some entries since writing sometimes beckons and can be done anywhere.

The calendar doesn’t call any louder than that computer or long legal pad, but it sits staring on my desk with blank eyes at my distractible self until I record something I have written.

Now please excuse me while I jot down “blogged about Writing Rule # 2.”

Mambo in Chinatown

Start with a 22-year-old Chinese girl – challenged by dyslexia, coping with life after her mother’s death, becoming a parent figure to an 11-year-old younger sister, and helping her father make his way in the strange culture of America. Give her a job at dishwashing that keeps her hands raw and coarse. Include the contrasting worlds of her mother as a dancer and her father as a noodle maker. Add a godmother with enough quotes to cover any situation and a mysterious illness that may keep her gifted younger sister from mastering the test to get into the school for academically gifted students. Complicate it all for by naming the girl Charlie. See her trying to make her way in America without upsetting the equilibrium of her Chinatown community and relatives. You have her story in Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok.

Several selections are worth quoting.  
•    When “The Vision” predicts failure in Charlie’s new job, the Godmother brings out a Lao Tzu quote, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
•    As she dresses in dance costumes, “I sneaked a glance at myself in the mirror. For the first time, I did not see a dishwasher.”
•    Her boy friend’s comment, “Every change has a hello and a good bye in it, you know? You always have to leave in order to go on to something new,” reminds her of a Godmother saying, “You must empty the cup before it can be filled again.”
•    Threaded through the book is the conflict of Western versus Eastern culture and medicine accompanied by a lot of dance instruction. Charlie needs to find who she is in order to adequately help those she loves.

I found this to be a good summer afternoon read with one caveat. There seems to be a need to include multiple popular issues in the modern day world whether or not they add any real value to the plot line.

Mets vs. Red Sox

Seeing the youngest Butler grandson in a Red Sox t-shirt brought on a series of baseball memories. Let it be said that baseball has never reached the passion level of football for me, but it’s had its moments.

I learned the basics from Daddy who divided life’s radio/television seasons into football, basketball, and baseball. He was an avid Yankees fan because he liked winners, and they usually were. I rooted against him for the underdog.

Forward a few years and the Army made Staten Island our home right about the time the rival NY Mets franchise was getting its start. Their egregious errors made watching them quite a comedy show. Their manager, Casey Stengel, wailed, “Doesn’t anybody here know how to play this game?” I became a fan and cheered the few games they won – especially when they edged out their cross-town rival Yankees.

Skip ahead several years to the 1986 World Series. The team had learned to play the game and advanced to the series against the Boston Red Sox. Our school principal was a diehard Red Sox fan. My second graders were awed after the first game when Mrs. Morgan brought down a red construction paper sock with big black marker letters  “Sox 1 – Mets 0” and posted it on my bulletin board. Quickly getting into the spirit, they mourned with me the next day when she brought another, “Sox 9 – Mets 3.” She did not appear after games three and four but my students cheered as I put up my own signs, “Mets 7 – Sox 1” and “Mets 6 – Sox 2.”

By now they were enjoying solving my math problems and ones they made up using baseball statistics and probabilities. Mrs. Morgan returned after game five, providing a sock “Sox 4 – Mets 2.” I sweated out ten innings of the sixth game to put up “Mets 6 – Sox 5.” We thought we’d seen the last of Mrs. Morgan after the last game, but she came down with good grace and watched my students cheer as I mounted the last sign, “Mets 8 – Sox 5.”

So, my youngest grandson in a Red Sox t-shirt because his mom grew up in New England? I’m forgiving my daughter-in-law this one. Now if she had been a Yankee fan . . .

Bound for Glory

Incredible as it sounds, the best part of our recent train trip from Atlanta to Hattiesburg was the forty-five minutes in the Atlanta waiting room.

A man opened the baggage area and pushed a cart stacked with a combination of two of my favorite things – jigsaw puzzles with pictures of trains. This led to a third favorite thing – conversation.

As it turned out, the man named Robert West was the artist who had painted the train pictures for the puzzles. We were soon making connections beyond our love of trains to his growing up a military brat – Air Force rather than Army – but kinship nonetheless to my three Army brats.

I loved his assortment of jigsaw puzzles and the paintings of other trains he had stashed behind them. I inquired if he had a puzzle of one of my favorite trains – the Panama Limited that I watched for in my childhood. “I don’t have that, but I have its sister train. Wait just a minute.” He hurried off and returned with a puzzle of The City of New Orleans.

Even Robert was amazed with the new connections as his background in the picture recalled home for me. It portrays Elvis driving a pink Cadillac on Mississippi Highway 51 running parallel to the railroad track. The road sign says Batesville with the marquee of Heartbreak Motel on down the road. Robert seemed to enjoy the coincidence that my husband had grown up just outside Elvis’s hometown of Tupelo, and we had accidentally seen his entourage three different times as it traveled into town for his appearance at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.

He pulled out his paintings from behind the puzzles to share. He showed a soon to be released painting of Tuskegee Airmen in flight above a train with a backdrop of mountains. He said some of the airmen would come soon and sign this “Red Tails and Black Smoke” painting for a limited edition of prints.

By now, Robert and I felt like old friends, and he began to share his heritage of two grandfathers who had worked as Pullman porters and his childhood experience of riding the rails. Railroads were part of his DNA. Like me, he has loved trains all his life.

He moved on to motivations behind his paintings as he treasured the symbolism in beloved spirituals that used the train as both a slave route to freedom and the Holy Spirit’s avenue to heaven. “You mean like ‘This Train Is Bound for Glory’?” I asked. He grinned and looked down at the puzzle I was buying. The title was “Bound for Glory.”

Before the conductor called, “All Aboard,” I was fifteen dollars poorer and one jigsaw puzzle and one friend richer. What a bargain!

{For more train pictures and information about the artist, visit www.steelrailsgallery.com.}

Resisting Temptation

I would say what I really thought about the perpetrator of this idea, but Mama told me not to call people names. Recently, I saw an article berating grown people for reading young adult literature, which left me with a dilemma. I try to be fair and see all sides of an issue, but the farther I read in this one, the closer I came to name-calling. I skimmed quickly. If I hurried, maybe I could put the whole idea behind me. Not so. I began to think of my blog readers.

I can justify my own reading of everything from picture books to Anna Karenina with the fact that I taught kindergarten, second grade, and junior high. Continuing, I can come up with grandchildren whose ages range from seven months to twenty-somethings. I need to know what to buy for birthdays and such.

However, I have to also consider the pleasures of what I hope are my loyal readers as I recommend books. When I thought of what they would miss without young adult books, I once again was tempted to get into name-calling. Whether they have or have not taught school, whether they enjoy or lack age-appropriate grandchildren, some of the best books today are written for children and young adults. Why should my blog-readers be deprived of them?  The person who came up with this idea is . . . I can’t finish. Mama said not to call names.

Instead, I will recommend a young adult trilogy for your reading pleasure over this Fourth of July holiday. They are “oldies, but goodies.” If you have read them already, you will enjoy them again. Richard Peck’s series featuring Grandma Dowdel creates sheer pleasure for young and old with its teen-aged protagonists and delightfully eccentric grandma.

A clue to the kind of writing you’re in for comes in the first sentence of the first book. A Long Way from Chicago begins in 1929, Al Capone’s era, with Joey and his sister Mary Alice leaving to spend time with their grandmother in the rural Midwest. Joey’s observation, “You wouldn’t think we’d have to leave Chicago to see a dead body,” indicates the good read ahead.

In the other two books, A Year Down Yonder and A Season of Gifts, Grandma Dowdel continues to entertain with different teenagers as the protagonists. I’m trying not to think about someone who would deprive you of this pleasure. I would be drawn into name-calling for sure. Instead, I give you this recommendation in time to locate the books and have a happy holiday with Grandma Dowdel who is “no oil painting” according to Joey’s description. 

Life's Shadow

The truth in the saying on the old English church’s clock struck me in our last summer’s trip. I took a picture and saved it with my blog possibilities, thinking I needed to respond to it at some point. “Life’s but a walking shadow.” Something about it being incomplete nagged me into waiting for the rest of the idea. It came this week.

Both literally and figuratively a shadow has many meanings. First glance at this one indicates the brevity of any one life and its insignificance in the scope of all of history. That is certainly one truth. Even if one reaches the remarkable age of 100, it is but a moment in the expanse of time.

But shadow has a couple of other meanings that have come up with the death of my good friend Darleen Dale. Her life of almost 79 years exceeds the “threescore years and ten” by almost a decade – still brief in the expanse of time. Yet, in her stories, other meanings of shadow have emerged. A shadow is sometimes a shelter from danger or ravages of a desert sun; sometimes an inseparable companion; sometimes a persuasive dominant influence; and sometimes a follower with plans to intervene for protection if needed.

Darleen was sister, aunt, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother to a large tribe. She taught children with learning difficulties. She was absolutely sure, long before they were, that they could learn to read. She was a principal who called each child in her school by name, both while they were in her school and for years afterwards when she ran into them. [I lie not. Many of them testified to it.] She encouraged – no, wrong word – she goaded young teachers in her school and others she knew to head back to the university to reach for a higher degree, to take risks that would make their lives or the lives of others better.

After a full life as an educator, she became a real estate agent, carrying those same qualities with her. The sale of a house began rather than ended her relationship with a client. She checked to see if she could help find a church, a dentist, or a grocery store. She might say, “Why don’t you come to dinner on Friday night, and I’ll invite some people who knew your parents?”

Darleen’s shadow was brief in the expanse of time, but her shadow touched multitudes of others whose shadows now reach in front of them. One of those who spoke at her funeral said she often asked Darleen how she could ever repay her and always received the same reply, “Pass it on.” I would not venture to guess how far her walking shadow may go, nor if it will ever end.

I think the completion of the saying on the clock might be, “Life’s but a walking shadow, yet it has the potential to stretch into other shadows that reach far beyond anything you could dream.”

Books Unending

One problem with books is that one leads to another. I saw a reference to the March family dog of Little Women in an advance reading copy of a new book. Now I read that book at least once a year when I was growing up and have returned several times in adulthood. I remembered no dog so that led me to read Little Women again.

Reading Little Women, which indeed has no dog, reminded me that I had Marmee and Louisa; The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott by Eva LaPlante on my Kindle. I knew Louisa’s back-story in a general way and knew she had based Little Women on her own family members. I wanted the whole story.

The biography enlarges on the vague details I had acquired and adds a closer perspective on the real family that Louisa idealizes in her novel. The Alcott family, even more impoverished than the March family of the novel, has a father figure chasing dreams with no more substance than the wind. The loving supportive marriage of her novel is a figment of her imagination or a case of what she wished her parents had. Louisa actually wrote far more stories and books than her alter ego Jo of the novel and with less worry over the sensationalism of her work because it paid debts and put food on the family table. After reading the biography, I concluded that Louisa based her character Jo about as much on her mother as on herself. The two were much alike.

Many times the biography and the diaries quoted in it have scenes that find themselves almost unaltered in her novel. For example, the reader finds the sisters’ love of Pilgrim’s Progress, the small post office they start to leave letters and mementos, and the overall encouragement of Louisa’s writing by her real Marmee. These and many more find their way into Louisa’s writing. She followed the writing adage of “writing what she knew” and subsequently made a great deal of money which she used to help others who were financially challenged as the Alcotts had been helped in her childhood and youth.

Having finished the biography, I find myself needing to reread The Scarlet Letter that Louisa read and to pull The Lost Stories of Louisa Mae Alcott from the bottom of my stack. Knowing she wrote this group in her desperate need to earn money to support her parents will make them more meaningful.

The wise writer of Ecclesiastes observed, “of making many books, there is no end,” which does not bode well for finishing my stack. However, in my cup-half-full approach to life, it means I will never run out of good books to read.

All Aboard!

“Not near a train track” headed my husband’s list for the real estate agent when we moved to Hattiesburg. I do not share his antipathy. My childhood home atop a hill that had one half sliced off and flattened for the railroad track makes the long whistle, the rattle of the boxcars, and the ka-chugging of the wheels sound like home. During those days, with a teenaged aunt and foster sister who listened to the radio, I loved the words to “Sentimental Journey” associated with the Les Brown Orchestra and many top singers of the day.

The real estate agent did as asked, and I only hear the train whistle far in the distance if the wind is right to carry the sound to where I garden. I’ve been glad that Amtrak runs from Hattiesburg to Birmingham where one of my sisters lives [the one that Mama correctly warned that I would really want to see someday]. Going by train costs about the same as driving; provides more legroom than either a plane or car; and gives time for reading, writing, or watching the spring or fall foliage and wildflowers out the window.

The lyrics to the old song come back when I get ready to make the trip.

I got my bag, I got my reservation
•    This is a little different than the old days. I do it online and print out the ticket.

Gonna make a sentimental journey
To renew old memories
•    Every trip finds us reliving old  memories – mostly good ones.

Spent each dime I could afford
•    Actually it was $67.15, but who’s going to quarrel with the song?

Like a child in wild anticipation
I long to hear that: "all aboard!"
•    Part of me failed to become a grownup.

Seven, that's the time we leave - at seven
I'll be waiting up for heaven
Counting every mile of railroad track - that moves me back
•    It was more like nine, but close enough.

I never thought my heart could be so yearny
Why did I decide to roam
Gotta take a sentimental journey
Sentimental journey home
•    Birmingham isn’t home, but any city or countryside dwelling with a sister is close enough!

Kinder than Necessary

Two things conspired to move the well-reviewed Wonder by R. J. Palacio to the top of my reading stack. First came a recommendation from a young friend who had read it with her son. She said they found multiple topics of good conversation as they examined the feelings of the characters in the book. Knowing my bookworm tendencies, she offered to lend me her copy.

The second urge came when our de Grummond Book Group chose it as our June selection. [If you happen to be in the neighborhood, we meet the third Thursday of each month at 11:30 AM in the de Grummond exhibit room in Cook Library on the University of Southern Mississippi campus. The only qualification for membership is a love of children’s and young adult literature.]

Since this is a “turn my pages and don’t put the book down until the end” kind of book, I was fortunate to start it on the first leg of a trip from Gulfport to Phoenix. It had me in its grip to the point that I read through lunch at the Atlanta airport and finished shortly after we airlifted for the final leg to Phoenix. In a bit of serendipity, my seatmate was a ten year old boy, and I was able to share after he promised to give the book back before we landed. He was soon chin-in-hand, elbows-on-knees, book-in-front engrossed.

The protagonist, August Pullman sets up the premise on the first page, “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.” Take a face like that into fifth grade after being homeschooled, and no one has to tell you what the problems will be. The surprise comes in the humor laced through the book that had the potential of being a downer. Various viewpoints ring true as Palacio switches among the characters to tell the story.

English teacher, Mr. Browne, provides monthly precepts to guide the students through the year leading them to find or create their own as they leave him for the summer. The first sets the tone for the book. “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”

Without didacticism, the author draws the reader into empathy for each individual who inhabits the story. A thoughtful reader will find it hard to leave the book behind without considering Mr. Tushman’s quote from J. M. Barrie’s The Little White Bird during his graduation address. “Shall we make a new rule of life . . . always to be a little kinder than is necessary?”

I think the answer is, “Yes!”

Three Father's Day Questions

The announcement that my daughter and son-in-law were to become parents was one of the best surprises of my life. Couples commonly have babies, but they were adopting children who had been in foster care. I won’t bore you with the process, but they found a sister and brother who were turning ten and eleven. There are choices when adopting out of foster care, and these two seemed just right for them from the very beginning.

I had seen Mark with his nieces and nephews and knew he could roughhouse with the best of them. A few questions came to mind as I tried to picture him as a father. #1 – How long would it take to feel like family with children who came not as babies, but as children with some of their formation behind them? #2 – Would he roughhouse with children who were his responsibility as he had those he could give back to parents when things got out of hand? #3 – Would he know how to separate the fun from the time to get serious? I would get answers pretty quickly.

We delayed our trip to meet the new grandchildren. They were adapting to enough without an extra barrage of people to meet so we waited a couple of months until we got the word from their parents that they were ready. The day we got there had been a busy one with the young son’s soccer practice following a long school day. We took them out to eat for supper and had a very slow server. As I watched father and son across the table, the boy’s fatigue set in. He slid slowly into his dad’s shoulder, resting his body as if he had spent all ten years of his life with him. Answer #1.

Answer # 2 came almost as soon as we returned to their house. Both children squirmed and squealed in anticipation of being turned upside down and backwards by their dad. Confirmation of this answer has come over time as the son mirrors his dad’s obsession with history, and he has supported their passions from the son's soccer referee postition to the daughter's FFA projects raising a steer and a goat.

The third answer also came quickly and has continued over time as both parents have set high standards for politeness, responsibility, and behavior. My favorite example was my compliment to Mark on his nearly weedless garden. He said, “Well, if a child has too much energy to behave inside, there is always a row of weeds.”

As we look toward Father’s Day, I think Mark figured out the three components of good fathers whether the children were born into their families or came another way. They create a feeling of family, have fun, and set high standards. Happy Father’s Day to all those who work hard to pull this off.

Teacher Pay

James is defeated.
His eyes are downcast.
His shoulders droop.
James does not believe in James.

His first report card is poor.
The parent conference goes well.
His parents believe in James.
I believe in James.
James does not yet believe in James.

Days go by.
James gets a right answer.
James makes a thoughtful comment.

Weeks go by.
James contributes a new idea.
James makes the honor roll.

Months go by.
A light shines in James’s eye.
I knew he had won
The day he asked the question.
“What did you say you need to go to college?”

I answer, “A scholarship?”

“Yes,” he says, “and if you work hard . . . ”

James is a winner.
James believes in James.

[Based on an honest-to-goodness second grader I once knew who was not named James!]

Writing Rule # 1

The young woman sitting in front of me scrambled frantically into the depths of her bag and came up empty. I recognized her problem. She couldn’t find a pen or pencil.

We were at the WIK 13 [Writing and Illustrating for Kids] conference sponsored by the Southern Breeze area of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Matt de la Pena was giving the keynote speech – not a good time to be without a writing instrument. I passed a pen up to her and waited until after the speech to share Rule # 1 and give her my own story.

I had been writing devotional material regularly for a youth magazine that also carried a few feature articles. On a visit to my sister Gwyn, we went to a local church to hear a trio that I had previously heard with our mother. Gwyn had taught math to the young men in high school and they were returning for a concert in their home town as they neared the end of college.

Rule # 1, which I had heard many times, is “Writers should never leave home without paper and a writing instrument.” I could see the sense in it since one never knows when an idea will strike. Most of the time, I followed it. On this occasion, it had slipped my mind.

As the leader of the group interspersed funny stories with the music, I knew quickly I had the material for a feature story for the magazine. What I did not have was pencil and paper. Gwyn scowled and did her schoolteacher signal for quiet. To silence me, she found a stub of a pencil in the pew. I pulled out my checkbook and began to take notes on the back of old duplicate checks.  Throughout the concert, I took barely legible notes. I grilled Gwyn for more information when we returned to her house.

I returned home, wrote the query, and got an acceptance by return mail. I enjoyed writing the article and getting the byline when it ran, and I learned a valuable lesson. Other writing rules may sometimes need to be broken. This one – never!

The young woman, at the beginning of her writing career, laughed at my story and assured me that she, too, had learned her lesson. Maybe after this experience, she will also carry a spare to help a fellow writer in need.

Tea Cakes and Maya Angelou

Since the news on May 28th reported the death of Maya Angelou, my Facebook account, TV newscast, papers and magazines have been filled with her quotable quotes and stories. Like many other people, I went back to a memory. My eighth grade language arts classes read an excerpt from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The episode begins with Maya’s grandmother looking for a way to help her out of the dark place that has plunged her into silence after she was raped. Her grandmother turns to Mrs. Flowers, the most elegant lady in their community, for help. Maya says Mrs. Flowers was the first to throw her a life line.

Mrs. Flowers treats Maya as a special person making lemonade and tea cookies [AKA tea cakes] for her and reading aloud from her favorite book, A Tale of Two Cities. Her words of wisdom foreshadow the woman Maya is to become. Addressing Maya’s unwillingness to talk, “Bear in mind, language is man’s way of communicating with his fellow man, and it is language alone which separates him from the lower animals.” She admonishes Maya to be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy and points out the truth of homely sayings of country people called “mother wit.” Many of those quotes that made the news are couched in those wisdom patterns translated into elegant English by the woman she became.

In the course of the class discussion, one of the students inevitably asked, “Mrs. Butler, what are tea cookies?”

My reply was, “I’m so glad you asked.” Then I pulled the tea cakes I had baked from their hiding place and passed them around as samples. I swore them to secrecy so the next class would be equally surprised. After the treat, they returned to the story with new interest in finding its message.

Occasionally in days to come, some bright junior high student would ask, “Mrs. Butler, I’ve forgotten. What are tea cookies?” I assured them that only worked once.

The number of lives Maya Angelou touched with her words of wisdom and her openness to share her own life and its message of survival could never be counted. There are some takeaways I hope my students have brought into their adult lives. I hope they remember that one person like Mrs. Flowers can make the difference in a child’s life that will help them become all they were meant to be. I hope they will see that a person like Maya Angelou can survive the worst life offers and go on to have a real influence for good in the world. And I hope they will remember that someone who makes tea cakes and reads to you from A Tale of Two Cities thinks you are very special.

Please, Louise

This little girl haunted my dreams one night several months ago. I saw this image by Shadra Strickland when she shared it on the Facebook account of our mutual friend Don Tate. I knew the girl had a longing for something. Off and on all night, I dreamed and woke with an urgency to find out what it was and help her out, a consequence of many years of being a mother and school teacher. The next morning I “borrowed” the picture and saved it to my computer so I would not forget to purchase Please, Louise when it came out.

A well-known writer (Toni Morrison) often is the reason for book sales, but in this case, it was the illustrator who drew me in. I have known and admired Shadra’s work as an illustrator since her Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator win for Bird. I got my book last week and checked out Louise’s longing. In typical childhood fashion, her imagination worked overtime creating fears as things she saw were projected into dangers. Shadra pictures Louise’s surroundings showing both the normal situation and the possibility that Louise’s fear is real. Was that a bird of prey or a golden eagle?

Louise didn’t need me after all for her solution. She found it at the library! On a double spread, Shadra takes Louise’s imagination to faraway places in the books she finds there with pirates, princesses, lion cubs, and dolphins. This reader slowed down to find all the intricacies of the beautiful art.

I loved Shadra’s final spread with Louise’s problem solved in a way that any bookworm will love. I can sleep well tonight with assurance that Louise is at peace and with gratitude for illustrators who make writer’s words come alive for young readers. In the meantime, Shadra’s work does not disappoint. I add her to my list of “Picture Book Illustrators to Watch For.”

Unreliable Tombstone

During the reminiscences that come with a family gathering, my 62-year-old sister asked, “Do you remember Mrs. Harris and Sunbeams?” This seems a good time to think about her as we honor those who have touched our lives and gone on before us on this Memorial Day.

Following old Southern tradition, today’s remembrance includes all those who have influenced our lives and have passed on to their rewards along with veterans who receive special mention. I won’t follow the tradition far enough to go to the graveyard and clean gravesites, wash headstones, and place flowers. I’ll just pay tribute to one of many rural people who touched the lives of my sisters and me as well as a host of other people.

I was seven when I met Mrs. Harris, so she probably wasn’t as old as I thought at the time. Her birth date is given as Nov. 19, 1919 with her daughter’s on the tombstone right beside it as five years later. My blog readers, I am sure, are intelligent enough to see the problem with credibility. The quoted inscription on the stone, “She loved and was loved,” is accurate as far as it goes. It just fails to tell the whole story. You can’t even depend on a tombstone.

I observed a striking phenomenon as rural Zion Baptist Church celebrated its 175th anniversary a couple of years ago with a book of memories and a weekend of remembrances. Both in the book and in the spoken memories, one name far overshadowed any others in recollections. It was not a pastor, deacon, musician, nor anyone normally thought of to be a leader in the church. The name was Mrs. Mary Harris.

All she ever did in church was work with preschoolers and young children, but she did that faithfully every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and usually once or twice more during the week for most of her lifetime.

One man, who appeared to be in his late sixties, stood and said, “I remember the Sunday when I lifted the roof of Mrs. Harris’s little clay house so the friends could let the sick man down for Jesus’ healing.” He triggered a spate of other stories of moving characters around on a flannel board and other creative ways Mrs. Harris taught the Bible stories she loved to the children she loved.

The quote on her tombstone in the cemetery across the road from the church is classic understatement. The tombstone doesn’t have room to hold all the thanks from all the adults whose lives she touched as children. Caregivers in that rural cemetery keep the gravesite in a way that honors her memory. The rest of us rely on honoring her as we pass forward what she gave so unsparingly.

Ten Ways to Enhance a School Visit

Ms. Deyamport and her fifth grade class at Thames Elementary could serve as a model for this how-to blog. I visited them yesterday for my “Katz to Keats” presentation about Ezra Jack Keats.

Of course, it is important for a visiting writer to be prepared with a good presentation, but the visit is enhanced by advance preparation and participation of the teacher and the class. Here are ten things I noticed that might be helpful to others who want to get the most from hearing a speaker, whether it is in a school setting or somewhere else.

1.    The poised student who came to the office to escort me to the room made me feel welcome. She told me how they had been anticipating my visit with my name on the board.

2.    The students were eager to show me the books they had found as they followed my pre-visit suggestion that they look in their library for books showing our diverse American culture. They seemed to share my pleasure that one of their books, A Bus of Our Own, was written by my good friend Freddi Williams Evans.

3.    The class obviously had read books critically on a regular basis before I came. Students were able to answer vocabulary questions related to reading and recognized authors I mentioned and could tell me what they had written.

4.    Students were seated in an optimal semi-circular fashion in their desks so everyone could see and participate.

5.    As the teacher saw a need to move a couple of children to better participation angles, she did it without fanfare or interruption to the discussion.

6.    The teacher modeled good listening practices. If she had lesson plans to do or papers to grade, they were not in evidence.

7.    The students listened carefully, made contributions that stayed on topic, and responded thoughtfully to questions I asked.

8.    At the end of my presentation, they asked good questions indicating that they had been thinking as well as listening.

9.    They thanked me without prompting for the Ezra Jack Keats bookmarks I brought!

10.    We exchanged blog addresses before I left. I checked theirs out when I got home and found some creative and practical projects that used math, reading, and critical thinking skills. I’m hoping they check mine out as well.

Dog Gone, Back Soon

Sometimes I don’t want to be inspired. I don’t want a greater understanding of the world. I don’t want to learn anything. I don’t want to figure out themes or motifs. I don’t want to admire the beauty of the language or the turn of phrase. All of those are worthy goals for a reader that I enjoy most of the time, but sometimes . . . .

Dog Gone, Back Soon by Nick Trout omits all of these. I will not impress any of my intellectual associates with my highbrow reading as I mention having read it in a book discussion. Some days, I need to read without having any particular purpose. It’s kind of like making a regular habit of enjoying healthy meat, potatoes, and green vegetables prepared in a tasty way – all well and good and pleasurable – but now and then, needing to have pie.

Fun stuff is found between the covers of the book – or on the pages of the Kindle. There’s a bit of the prodigal come home as Dr. Cyrus Mills returns to his roots to rescue his father’s family style veterinary practice against the big box chain trying to move in. There’s a little mystery and a touch of romance with a touch of politics thrown in for good measure. Animal lovers will enjoy following Dr. Mills as he unravels the strange illnesses running through the four-legged community. All of it is laced with a sense of humor.

So what did I get for reading this book? Not much but an afternoon of pleasure – enhanced by that porch swing and rain on the roof that I mentioned in my last blog.

May's Music

I have an answer to James Russell Lowell’s question from The Vision of Sir Launfal, “What is so rare as a day in June?” He claims “Then, if ever, come perfect days.”

This May had an equally “so rare” – and perfect – day.

• ·         No looming deadlines except two books, Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes to be finished before our Children’s Book Group and Keeper by Kathi Appelt to be read and passed along to a good friend
• ·         The symphony of rain on the patio’s tin roof, the music ebbing and flowing with the intensity of the showers, accompanied by the pickety-plop drumming of raindrops into the puddles
• ·         The new porch swing’s rhythm in time to the beat
• ·         A visual break for the eyes, looking out through the curtain of water flowing off the roof to the spring greens of the trees and golden day lilies lining the yard
• ·         Guilt free pleasure taking it all in, as I keep repeating – part of the job of a writer is to be a reader
• ·         Remaining joyfully on task all day as I completed two great stories

I’ll see the beauty of Lowell’s day in June and match it with the magical music of May.

Dinner with the Highbrows

Magic happens when a gifted children’s book illustrator buys in to an author’s rollicking story. Dinner with the Highbrows by Kimberly Willis Holt and illustrated by Kyrsten Booker is just such an enchanting picture book.

On his first invitation to dinner at a friend’s house, Bernard gets ready for the event with his mother as his trainer. Assuming that the Highbrows must have excellent manners since they live in such a fine house, Bernard’s mom coaches and Bernard practices all the good manners they can recall. The rollicking starts when the Highbrows turn out drastically different from their expectations. The listening child and the reading adult are both likely to get the giggles at Kimberly’s story.

Completing the magic from cover to cover, Krysten Booker’s art begins with the book jacket and includes the end papers. Kids will linger on each page to be sure they don’t miss an antic or an eye-roll by one of the Highbrows.

When real magic happens, there’s always something unseen in the background. Don’t tell the kids, but the book has most of the dinner rules they’ll ever need to know and a vivid picture of the mayhem that comes when they are not followed.

I have a copy of the book for two young grandsons who are just the right age for it. I will not send it. I’ll wait until I make a trip to see them. I’m not giving up the privilege of hearing the first giggles to their parents. I’m saving that for myself when I read it to them for the first time.

The Teacher's Teacher

I had been at South Polk Elementary School for scarcely a month when Mrs. Morgan, the principal, came into my second grade classroom during my morning work instructions with her long yellow legal pad and a parent whose body language exuded anger. She pulled out a couple of chairs and said, “Go right ahead. We’re just going to observe for a few minutes.” Once they settled into their seats, Mrs. Morgan began writing as if she were taking dictation. For the next half hour, I taught with one corner of my mind wondering what kind of school I had gotten myself into.

I would learn that Mrs. Morgan’s yellow legal pad was my friend. Another teacher assured me when we took our classes to the library later that morning that there was a reason behind this strange behavior and volunteered to watch my class while I went down to ask what it was.

Mrs. Morgan told me the mother was sure I had done something to her daughter to make her unhappy in school and would not be persuaded otherwise short of an unannounced visit to see me in action. Mrs. Morgan insisted on coming with her. As I would learn, she could take down more of what happened in a classroom on that yellow legal pad than a video could record. She took the mother back to the office after their observation and went through everything I said and did and every student question, response, or reaction and explained the educational principles behind the entire morning’s lesson.

I thought about her this week as much has been said about Teacher Appreciation Week. Before she was a principal, Mrs. Morgan was a wonderful classroom teacher. She saw her role as a teacher of teachers. Frequently, she was called on to do educational workshops and often borrowed a book given to me by an adult student in my Sunday school class called The Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died and Teacher You Went Right On by Albert Cullum. Sadly the book is out of print, and the only grudge I hold against Mrs. Morgan is that she forgot to return it the last time she borrowed it. The premise of the book is the extreme importance of seizing every teachable moment in the classroom regardless of what is in the lesson plan.

Mrs. Morgan had standards. Woe to the teacher who was caught without lesson plans at least one week in advance. Double woe to the teacher who failed to address a child’s needs. And triple woe to the teacher who failed to notice that the geranium on the windowsill just died.

And the little girl who first made me acquainted with Mrs. Morgan’s yellow pad? In time, we learned she had been the classroom princess in another school the previous year. In a class of mostly boys and a teacher who liked girls, she scored points with her pretty dresses and matching socks. What a comeuppance to get me and have a teacher who liked both boys and girls and expected them to exercise their brains!

This week, and every week, I appreciate teachers and the principals who encourage them to make good plans with flexibility for dead geraniums.