Kate DiCamillo's Blog, page 33

The other day Henry and I were out walking when I saw a small thing glowing on t...

The other day Henry and I were out walking when I saw a small thing glowing on the sidewalk ahead of me. At first I thought it was a piece of jewelry and then as I got closer, I decided it was some fabulous variety of beetle.
What it turned out to be was a gummy bear, a red one.
The sun was hitting it at just the right angle and it was lit up like a small lamp.
“Look at this gummy bear,” I said to Henry.
He sniffed it.
He wasn’t that impressed.
We walked on, but I kept turning to look back a...

From the Candlewick team: We are pleased to announce the highly anticipated new...

From the Candlewick team: We are pleased to announce the highly anticipated new novel from Newbery Award–winning and New York Times best-selling children’s author Kate DiCamillo, The Illuminated Adventures of Flora and Ulysses, to be published globally September 26, 2013. Stay tuned for more information over the coming year!

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend’s elderly father died. A bunch of us were...

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend’s elderly father died. A bunch of us were up north at a cabin when we got the news. It was nighttime and we went down to the dock and watched fireworks and looked for shooting stars. Each one of us had lost one parent, or both. And so we talked from a communal well of sorrow and understanding and also disbelief.
Yesterday afternoon, a gigantic tree fell over in my neighborhood. It was huge and old, but I never would have thought that it would just go like...

So, last week I had kidney stones (what is the proper terminology here? Suffere...

So, last week I had kidney stones (what is the proper terminology here? Suffered kidney stones? Was afflicted with kidney stones? Passed kidney stones?) and what I kept thinking as I lay on the bathroom floor, screaming in pain, was: if I live through this, surely I will be different somehow. Pain like this has got to change me.
Am I changed?
I don’t know.
All I can say for certain is that for the three days of the kidney stone ordeal, I was never alone.
Friends sat with me on the bathroom f...

I have made a habit, in these last days of summer, of going out into the backyar...

I have made a habit, in these last days of summer, of going out into the backyard as soon as it is light and looking at the morning glories.
I don’t have many; but the ones I do have seem so brave and bright.
They are intent only on being themselves.
To stand beside them reminds me that this is a good way to be:
yourself,
valiantly,
unapologetically,
beautifully
in the morning world.

Found on the sidewalk on the last day of August 2012: a fortune cookie slip bear...

Found on the sidewalk on the last day of August 2012: a fortune cookie slip bearing the words “Get ready to do something daring.”
“Okay,” I said out loud.
I was happy for the phrasing, because to me the words “get ready” implied that I did not have to be daring just quite yet.
I am, by nature, extremely cautious.
But I have found that writing a book cannot be a cautious undertaking.
Instead, it must be an act of desperation and derring-do.
I took the fortune as a reminder that I am being to...

In the mailbag:A letter from Ella, who is six. Here is her artwork: a drawing...

In the mailbag:
A letter from Ella, who is six. Here is her artwork: a drawing of Mercy Watson licking her lips at the prospect of toast with a great deal of butter.
The letter itself is short, just three sentences; and the last sentence reads: “Thank you for the Mercy Watson books.”
It is a wonderful thing to write stories; and it is astonishing to have someone read the stories you write.
I feel like I am the one who should say “thank you.”
And I do.
I say “thank you” as I type, and as I w...

I went to the opening day of the Minnesota State Fair on Thursday. And I kept t...

I went to the opening day of the Minnesota State Fair on Thursday. And I kept thinking about my mother. A friend and I took her to the fair her first year in Minnesota. My mother consented to ride in a wheelchair. She ate a Pronto Pup. I bought her a bag of mini-donuts. She ate a single donut and then put the bag in her purse.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I’m saving the rest for later,” she said.
She made that little bag of donuts last a whole week.
“Aren’t they stale yet?” I kept asking h...

Well, I have dog-eared, underlined and exclamation-pointed my way through the co...

Well, I have dog-eared, underlined and exclamation-pointed my way through the collected essays of E.B. White. And I have to say that I am sad to be done. Actually, what I am is bereft. I never knew E.B. White, but I miss him terribly.
His ability to see, to marvel--his rueful, joyful ruminations--have kept me such good company that I cannot bear to shelve the book.
When I went to the cabin last week, I took the essays with me even though I had read them all. The book is on my desk now and it...

I grew up in Florida, in an old house with a lot of windows. Lizards liked to c...

I grew up in Florida, in an old house with a lot of windows. Lizards liked to cling to the window screens. And sometimes, a lizard would manage to make its way between the screen and the window and come inside. If the lizard did not find his way back outside soon enough, if he got lost in a closet or under a bed, he would fade from bright green or brown, to a ghostly white. Once this happened, the lizard was slower and less certain and it was easy for me to catch him, to cup him in my hands a...