Back from New York!

 
Rye Middle School, Rye, New York

I had a great trip to Rye and Armonk, New York, my last two school visits of 2011!  In both schools, Rules is a core book for sixth grade so I spoke to the sixth graders at each school. This was also a return visit to both schools.  It was great to see the media specialists and teachers again!  And to meet this year's sixth graders. 

This trip had lots of nice moments and they started as soon as I arrived at LaGuardia. I always have to bite back a giggle when a school uses a car service to pick me up at the airport and some smartly-dressed man is standing in baggage claim holding a sign that says LORD on it. It's usually just written on the back of a folded-over piece of scrap paper, but it makes me feel like a movie star.

On the ride to the hotel, we chatted a little about the area and the school and then he reached beside him and opened the console and took out a well-worn copy of Rules. He said his twin 14-year-old daughters wanted him to ask me if I'd sign it.

"Don't hit any bumps!" I said, signing it on my knees.

In Rye, I did my presentations and had lunch with a wonderful group of kids, many of whom want to be authors and are working on stories and books. One girl also touched my heart when she told me that she has a friend in England who has a brother with autism and her family had mailed a copy of Rules to that family.


HC Crittenden Middle School in Armonk. As you can see, I didn't have nice weather. In fact, most of town lost power while I was at school!  The lights flickered during my presentation, but the school has a generator, which kicked in and allowed me to finish my slides! 

In Armonk, I went to supper with the PTO author coordinator and her lovely family.  At school, the teachers and staff were so welcoming. In fact, the principal had lived and worked in Northern Maine years ago!  So it was fun to talk with him about potato farming and moose and the challenges and strengths of bilingual schools (in this case French and English). 

And I had a nice surprise.  A couple sixth-grade girls were early for their session, so we were just chatting. One girl asked me if I had other books, and I told her I was working on a new novel, but I also had a second novel published last year called Touch Blue. 

"YOU wrote Touch Blue?!" she asked. "I LOVE THAT BOOK!"  She told me her teacher last year had read it to the class, and then she had read it again on her own. 

When I sent Touch Blue out into the world, I worried about disappointing my readers of Rules. That probably did happen sometimes, but it's wonderful to see that it also didn't happen. 

But for all those nice moments, this trip started with a hard boom--literally!  In the airport in Portland, my suitcase fell over on the hard ladies' room floor, and my laptop screen cracked. When I booted up my laptop, the screen looked like an abstract painting with big black blots and squiggles!  

I always bring my programs on a flashdrive as a back-up, and I wondered if I would have to call my schools and tell them I needed a laptop to use, but I decided I'd test everything first. So I walked to a quiet corner of the airport and set up my projector and held a piece of white paper in front of the lens to see what the image would look like on the screen. Those cracks and blots didn't affect what came through the projector, so I did the visits using my damaged laptop. 

Now that I'm home,  I need to have that screen replaced--or maybe buy a new laptop.  So I won't be online very often until it's fixed.  I was sorry that it happened, but I've done over 200 school visits in the last 5 years and this is the first time I've had something happen to my equipment.  So I can't really complain.

  I have a little dog sleeping against me and three months of writing and family time ahead.  So really, everything is good. Even with some big black blotches and squiggles.  :-)