Five Things on a Friday

 

1.  Thank you to Woodside Elementary School in Topsham, Maine for a great day yesterday!  I read Hot Rod Hamster to the first grade and presented on Rules and Touch Blue with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.  I had many nice moments, but the one that's in my heart this morning was a third grade girl who came up to me afterward and told me that she has an older brother with autism.  I had met him earlier in the day.

"I'm going to ask my mom to buy Rules for me," she said. "Where can she get it?" 

I always bring an extra copy of each book, in case I make a mistake signing one. So I reached into my bag. "Here. You can have this one." 

The look on her face as I signed it to her. . . well, it made us both happy.


2.  I'm so sad James went home on American Idol.  He's the one I looked forward to every week!  I'm sure that he'll have big opportunities as a result of being on the show, but selfishly, I'll miss hearing him.


3.  Thank you to the librarians of Wyoming for putting Touch Blue on the Wyoming Indian Paintbrush list for next year.  That's Touch Blue's sixth state list.  Yay!

 
L-R: Roy Bird (Kansas Center for the Book Director), Riley Brennan (Level 2 winner), Romila Santra (Level 1 winner),
Kansas Governor Brownback, Robert Brian Ludwig (Level 3 winner), Jo Budler (State Librarian)

4.  Congratulations to Romila Santra, a fifth grader who won the Kansas Letters About Literature contest with a letter to me!  Here is Romila's state winning letter. 


5.  I'm going to plant some things. . . the general rule of thumb in Maine is to wait for Memorial Day, but I'm impatient!