Mr. Harrison was my grade five teacher. He was tall and handsome with chocolate brown hair that swept across his forehead and he was cool and funny. All the kids loved him and wanted to be like him. And when he was on yard duty we all hovered around him hoping some of his coolness […]

Doesn’t mean your own life has to suffer. We’ve been saying that a LOT around the homestead. I mean who wouldn’t be appalled at what’s going on all over the world? There’s carnage and bloodshed and dying and starving all over the place. I’m trying really really hard not to hate rich people! And I’m […]

I know it’s been a while since my last post. Been thinking of things to blog about but I’ve often been too busy to blog. And then something really sent me for a loop. Every once in a while that will happen. You’ll be coasting along and something impacts you with enough force to change […]

Hmm. In light of that mini-speech I gave at the NCTE, I’m starting to think, hey, what’s so wrong with being on the porch? I’m feeling a little disillusioned with pop culture. Last night I was watching Toy Story 3. It’s not the first time I watched it. It’s the third time, and yeah, there […]

Isn’t it interesting that such an odd word ‘pedagogy’ deals with the teaching of stuff to kids? It’s funny how lately I’ve been pondering the physical impact of words and finding onomatopoeia in all kinds of words! Like ‘pondering’ for instance, doesn’t it sound like you’re doing just that, pondering, thinking, mulling something over? And […]

I just came back from attending a fabulous panel discussion that opened up the NCTE conference in Washing D.C. I was on a panel being moderated by Rudine Bishop, and my fellow panelists were Christopher Myers, Matt de la Pena, and Mitali Perkins. For the following two days all kinds of attendees came up to […]

Most of the programs I’m running at Fairview Library take place in the program room. With two walls of glass it’s basically a glass ‘box’ on the first floor. Everyone coming in and out of the library passes the program room. It’s a favorite for people to use for quiet study. The glass walls muffle […]

So yesterday I did the baby storytelling again at the library and I relied on poems and stories that I had grown up with. It was interesting because most of the audience of babies and toddlers were immigrants/Asian/and South Asian and to them these poems and pieces were completely new! I did an old favorite, […]

There is nothing as intimidating to a storyteller as an audience of babies! Little boys, little girls, Asian, South Asian, white, sitting on their mommies’ and daddies’ staring at you with their big brown and black and blue eyes, and a blank look on their faces that basically says, “Okay, go ahead. Try and entertain […]

Breathe now, heh, heh, heh. Deeper. Expand your diaphram! Heh, heh, heh. There now, that’s better. Too too busy! Good news! King for a Day has been chosen by Kirkus as one of the best books of 2014!!! Yay!!! So now lesse, my little book King for a Day has been nominated for the Irma […]