Cynthia Lord's Blog, page 61

Wordless Wednesday

Bailey Island, Maine. Photo by my husband, John

It's a Couple of Book Babies!

 Congratulations! It's a bouncing book-baby!

Name: Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen!

Date: March 13, 2012
Weight: 288 pages
Proud Parent: Donna Gephart
Godparents: Delacourt Books


Name: Eye of the Storm

Date: March 13, 2012
Weight: 304 pages
Proud Parent: Kate Messner ( kmessner )
Godparents: Walker Books

If you could take a pill to not be autistic anymore, would you take it?

I often say the best thing about Rules is what happens AFTER kids read the book. This group of kids interviewed a family from their own community: two kids who have autism and their mom.

I love that one of the boys made the point that in order to destroy his autism, you'd have to destroy him.

It's so much a part my son that I don't even know who he'd be without it.

Ahhhhh

   

Sometimes all it takes to be happy is a warm square of sunshine. 

White Mountains This Way

Seeing the peak of Mt. Washington from Casco Bay on Tuesday tugged at me, because Northern New Hampshire is where I've set the novel I'm working on now. I miss that area.  So yesteday, it was a gorgeous day in Maine and I pointed my car west for The White Mountains of New Hampshire.

After driving two hours over hundreds of frost heaves, bumpity, bumpity, bump, I arrived.



It was so worth it.

It's a Book Baby!

 Congratulations! It's a bouncing book-baby!

Name: Me Want Pet!

Date: March 6, 2012

Weight: 40 pages

Proud Parent: Tammi Sauer ( tamarak ), illustrated by Bob Shea

Godparents: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

Long Island, Maine

Yesterday, I drove down to Portland and took the ferry out to the beautiful island of Long Island, Maine.  Patty, the librarian, met me at the ferry terminal and we rode out together.  

  

It was only 23 degrees, so I didn't stand at the ferry rail, but it was a gorgeous day and the scenes out the windows were breathtakingly blue.

   

Then we arrived! 

    

I felt very welcomed at the school and the library!

   

Long Island has 16 kids in grades K-5, and they also invited two other island schools to take the ferry over to join us for the afternoon.  So in my audience, I had the kids of Long Island, Chebeague Island, and Cliff Island together.  What a wonderful group!  The kids were friendly and fantastic!  I had such a nice time with them.  

Chebeague was the island where I taught back in the mid 1980s. In my presentations for Touch Blue, I always show a group photo of me and the other teacher with our 13 kids.  I wondered if maybe I'd show that photo and the Chebeague kids would know someone in the photo. 

And it did happen!  The mom of one of my former students was in the audience, and another of the adults came up and spoke to me. When I looked into her face, I recognized the fourth grader she once was. "Meredith?!" I said, and she nodded. How wonderful to see her all grown up. 

I talked about Rules and Touch Blue with the 3rd to 5th graders and my Hamster books with the K-2nd graders.  While I was with the older kids, the younger ones went into the K-2 classroom and wrote a great new story about Hamster! 

   Hot Rod Hamster Goes to the Lobster Boat Races!  Oh Hamster would LOVE that!!! If you'd like to see their story, you can read it here. 

After school, Patty gave me a tour of the island.  Such a beautiful place--even with a "Wicked Cornah!" 

  

I'd always heard that on a really clear day, you can see Mt. Washington in New Hampshire from the Coast of Maine. I have to admit that I never really believed that!  But yesterday, I saw that it's true.  

  It was easier to see it in person than in this photo, but if you look right in the center of the tree line, there's a blue mountain, and then move your eye to the right and there's a wisp of white above the trees.  That's Mt. Washington, covered in snow. 



Thank you to Patty Temple and to the students and teachers of Long Island, Cliff Island, and Chebeague Island for giving me a day I won't ever forget. 

Casco Bay, Maine

Here's where I'm heading tomorrow! 

The librarian from Long Island, ME is planning to meet me at the ferry terminal in Portland, and we'll take the ferry to the island together. Which will be wonderful, because not only will it be so nice to meet her, but the above video was shot in the summer, and it'll be helpful to know where I'm going when I get off the ferry on the island. 

Because here's what Long Island looks like in the winter!

Back to Work

 
Spruce Head, Maine. Photo by my husband, John

I reopened my novel-in-progress yesterday and went back to work--and back to words. 

The book woke me up this morning. 

That's a good sign. 

Happy Birthday, Hot Rod Hamster and Dr. Seuss!

  Yesterday, I had a school visit with the great kids and teachers at Woolwich Central School in Maine.  Originally, we had scheduled the visit for Thursday, but we had a snowstorm and school was canceled.  So yesterday, we had a double event:  my school visit and the school was also celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday.  It was a very exciting and fun day! 

Woolwich Central School is a K-8 school, so I talked about my Hamster books with K-3; Touch Blue with 4, 6 and 7; and Rules with 5 and 8th graders.  It's always especially fun to do a K-8 school because there's so much variety in the day. The groups were all wonderful. 

I was greeted with hallways full of hot rods and also some of the kindergartners had done Derek Anderson's drawing page for Happy Birthday, Hamster.  I loved seeing what they thought Hamster would like for his birthday.  Here are a few:

  
A balloon and a robot.

  
A ladybug pillow pet, a piece of cake, and a book about monster trucks.

  
A lion and a mouse in a cage.

  
2000 Slinky toys, a banana, and a GIRLFRIEND!  Oooooooooo. 



And I was very charmed by how this school celebrates Dr. Seuss' birthday!  The 6th grade hosts a Dr. Seuss Cafe for the K-2nd graders.  The 6th graders had menus where the K-2nd graders could choose a snack, a drink, and a Dr. Seuss book to be read to them.  The 6th graders took it very seriously and took turns being the readers and the waiters. 

  

What a great multi-grade experience for all the kids!