Summertime—and the Livin’ Is Easy

The Circuitous Path to a Cover Now That was Persistence

Summertime—and the Livin’ Is Easy

Today’s guest post is from Deborah Dee Harper. She’s lived in Alaska, where she chased bears and moose. Now she lives in Murfreeboro, Tennessee and writes inspirational, humorous books for children and adults.

Recently, my six-year-old granddaughter “graduated” from kindergarten. I remember having to complete thirteen years of education before graduating from anything at all, let alone kindergarten, but then I was born closer to the Middle Ages than my grandchildren. At her ceremony, which was full of excitement and accomplishments, I recalled the anticipation I felt whenever the school year came to a close—the freedom from structure, sleeping in, no homework, the anticipation/fear of the report card coming in the mail (would I pass on to fourth grade?), and the thought of three whole months of playing outdoors with nothing in particular to do.

That lasted about a week. First of all, my mother wasn’t one to let us sleep in very late, so there went that fantasy. And structure? Oh yes, there was some of that too in the form of chores before playing—cleaning up the breakfast table, making my bed, and brushing my teeth and hair among them. There were times I swore my mother stayed up late figuring out jobs for us kids to do, and while I eventually figured out it was to keep boredom at bay, at the time it seemed cruel and unjust punishment for … for what? Summer vacation? Not having a job? Being seven years old?

I live with my oldest daughter and her little girl. Now that my granddaughter is home for summer vacation, I am reminded that when my children were little I did the same thing to them, and I’m doing the same thing with Molly while her mother works. It didn’t take me long to realize my mother wasn’t trying to punish us; she was trying to keep from going out of her mind. No sleeping in because she’d never get us to sleep that night. There were chores because 1.) we were little slobs, and 2.) it ate up some of the time of those long summer days and kept us from saying “I’m bored. What can I do?” After a few answers from her like, “Bored, eh? Well, I’ve got a little job for you to do then,” I clammed up and dealt with it.

About two weeks into our summer break, we started to do something that would’ve shocked me on that last day in my classroom. We started playing school. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I started checking the mail five times a day for my copy of the Weekly Reader and scrounging around for anything to read. My parent’s Reader’s Digest condensed books were fair game even though a lot of them were over my elementary-aged head. But my favorites, by far, were the Nancy Drew mysteries.

And that’s why I wrote the Laramie on the Lam adventures series for kids. Six books tell of 11-year-old Laramie Wyoming’s antics and adventures as he and his family and worst enemy/foster brother cross the United States in a motorhome so his mom can gather information for her travel books. Trouble is, Laramie got tangled up with some bank robbers back in their hometown of Laramie, Wyoming (which he is obviously named after), and those robbers aren’t about to give up the $30,000 they slipped into Laramie’s backpack—even though Laramie long ago gave that money to the police. They visit lots of historical, scenic, and just plain interesting and fun places across the nation while the robbers chase them the whole way. They learn lessons, have lots of adventure, solve mysteries, encounter wildlife, bad guys, earthquakes, and lots of other cool stuff.