Kate DiCamillo's Blog, page 30

The Levenger Company has made Despereaux bookends, and they are fabulous. I hav...

The Levenger Company has made Despereaux bookends, and they are fabulous. I have books all over the house and am desperately in need of bookends, but I’ve been displaying my bookend in an east-facing window, like a statue. I like to come out in the morning, when I am done with the writing and journaling and look at the mouse climbing the stairs, small, determined, the sun shining behind him. I look at him and I think: okay, I will try again tomorrow. And so the bookend is, I suppose, function...

Here is Cady Davis on the morning of her seventh birthday: seven pancakes and a...

Here is Cady Davis on the morning of her seventh birthday: seven pancakes and a book. I don’t think I need to explain why this photograph thrills me so much. Talk about an image to write toward.
Happy Birthday, Cady.
Thank you for letting me tell you a story.

I keep thinking about Kevin. I met him last weekend in Long Island. He was in...

I keep thinking about Kevin. I met him last weekend in Long Island. He was in his football uniform because he had a game later that afternoon.
He wanted me to sign his copy of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.
I said, “Did this book make you cry?”
I was kidding him. My experience with Edward Tulane is that it makes adults cry, not kids.
But Kevin looked me in the eye and said, “Yes. Several times.”
Which, of course, made me tear up.
Writing is hard for me. I falter. I doubt. I lose m...

When I was a kid, my mother took us every Christmas to visit Jordan Marsh, a dep...

When I was a kid, my mother took us every Christmas to visit Jordan Marsh, a department store in the Colonial Plaza Mall in Orlando, Florida. We ate at the restaurant (I can’t remember the name of it now; was it the Oak Room?) and then went to the toy department and visited Santa. But what I remember best are the balloons. They were navy blue and imprinted with snowflakes; and when you blew up the balloon, the snowflakes got bigger and bigger. Snow, to me then, was unimaginable: a myth, a fai...

In the mornings, after I am done writing, I like to go back upstairs with a cup...

In the mornings, after I am done writing, I like to go back upstairs with a cup of coffee and my journal and get back into bed and cogitate a little about what I just wrote. Now that the leaves are off the trees, I can see to the next street over. I can watch the city buses go back and forth, moving through the early morning darkness with their windows all lit up. I don’t know why this pleases me so, to see the buses roaring past, but it does. I write a little bit. I look out the window a lit...

Here is a life-sized elephant constructed entirely of poems (haikus and diamante...

Here is a life-sized elephant constructed entirely of poems (haikus and diamantes) written by second and third graders, and inspired (in part) by a few odd lines from The Magician’s Elephant: “The dimensions of an elephant are most impressive. The dimensions of an elephant are impressive in the extreme.”
Some of the students who had a hand in making this elephant came to the library event in San Diego last month. Their teacher (Stephanie Barnes) sent along this picture of what they had all ma...

A few weekends ago, I did a reading and signing at a library in San Diego. Afte...

A few weekends ago, I did a reading and signing at a library in San Diego. Afterward, a boy handed me a crumpled piece of paper bearing these words: Casey the Utterly Impossible Horse.
“What’s this?” I said.
“It’s the title of a book I thought you would like,” he said.
“Casey the Utterly Impossible Horse?”
“Yep,” he said.
“I wish I had thought of that title,” I said.
“Yep,” he said. “But then you would have to write the book, too.”
“True,” I said. “Utterly impossible.”
What I wanted to say (b...

From the Candlewick Team: Happy Black Friday! Here's a deal for you: The Tiger...

From the Candlewick Team: Happy Black Friday!
Here's a deal for you: The Tiger Rising is a Kindle Kids Daily Deal on Amazon.com today; don't miss it!

What I have learned about thankfulness: the smaller, the more particular, the mo...

What I have learned about thankfulness: the smaller, the more particular, the more ordinary, the better.
For example: the light coming in a west-facing window at three in the afternoon, the old man’s hands on the newspaper, the gleam of a crow’s feather, the dog asleep, all four paws in the air.
More: the berries on my chinaberry tree, the lamp in my neighbor’s window, pepperoni pizza, eggs sunny-side up, someone saying, “Wait a minute. Come back.” Someone else saying, “I’m sorry. Come here...

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk To all you writers out there, here is ...

NaNoWriMo Pep Talk
To all you writers out there, here is a pep talk I wrote for National Novel Writing Month. This letter originally appeared on NationalNovel Writing Month’s Young Writers Program website, ywp.nanowrimo.org. I wanted to share it here, too. ...