New short story collection featuring some of my fav authors is on it's way.

Image via Wikipedia (Kate DiCamillo)

I came across some great news today. Haughton Mifflin Harcourt Children's is putting together some of my all time fav. author to create middle grade stores based on an illustration.  Sadly, the book, Chronicles of Harris Burdick, won't be out until fall 2011.  The good news is that Lois Lowry, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Sheerman Alexie, M.T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Louis Sachar and Jon Scieszka will all have stories in it.  Not to sound too fawning, with a star-studded line-up like that, it's bound to be awesome.

Flaunt Book Banning

Looking for a way to celebrate Banned Books Week?

According to ALA, here are 2009's most challenged books.
Flaunt book banning!  
Read one or more of these great books, and then leave it at a bus stop, subway or other public place for someone else to pick up.  

Out of 460 challenges as reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom 
Some of these are favorite titles.  

1. “TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle 
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs 
2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson 
Reasons: Homosexuality 
3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky 
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide 
4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee 
Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group 
5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer 
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group 
6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger 
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group 
7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult 
Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide, Violence 
8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler 
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group 
9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker 
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group 
10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier 
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Run for the Cure

I'll be doing the 5 K 'Run for the Cure' next week before work.  I'll be running for all women.  You may not be inclined to run, but anyone can donate either your time, or a few bucks at www.cbcf.org.  I hope you'll consider it. I'll post a few pics after the race.

The Book Worm is Reading Waiting for the Whales

For the last several months, The Oak Bay Book Worm has been reading a different book every week, Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Moby Dick are a few of the books being read.  My dog Ruby, aka "the shadow" is checking out what the Oak Bay Book Worm is reading this week; it's Waiting for the Whales!  Dan Bell, the creative horticulturalist behind The Oak Bay Book Worm, and all sorts of other horticultural masterpieces, you are awesome!

By the way, if you like what you see, let the Parks & Rec. Department of Oak Bay know.  I'm sure it would be a treat for them to hear some positive feedback for their wonderful living art, especially art that has encouraged reading.  And, it's always nice to have one of your own books on the Book Worm's reading radar.

David Weisner in Vancouver

Great news!   Author / illustrator extraordinaire David Weisner will be at Vancouver Kidsbooks on Wednesday October 13th at 7pm.  His titles include Flotsam and Tuesday, both stunning books.  He'll be promoting his new book, Art & Max.  Tickets will be limited, so call today.

Books for "Airlift to LA"

A few months ago, I was contacted by Helaine Becker, a writer friend.  She'd been in LA and had visited a school with virtually no books on the library shelves.  Not one to accept the status quo, Helaine decided to do something about it.  That something is about to come to fruition.


The following is a press release she sent along this morning.

Children’s book author orchestrates Canada-wide book drive to stack library shelves of inner city school in Los Angeles.

Helaine Becker’s Airlift to LA highlights the state of Canadian school libraries.

August 23, 2010 (Toronto, ON) Shocked by the empty library bookshelves during an author visit to a Los Angeles-area elementary school, children’s book author Helaine Becker is taking action. She’s started a campaign to put books in the hands of disadvantaged children in LA, and, just as important, is bringing attention to the alarming state of Canadian school libraries.

Becker, an award-winning Toronto area author, has written over 40 books for children, including Science on the Loose (Maple Tree Press 2008), and is known for her wacky, off beat humour for the younger set.

In a recent trip to California, Becker collected over 650 books (most were discards from more affluent schools) for Barton Elementary School, located in an inner city area of Long Beach. Books not up to library standards were given directly to the children and for most of these children, it was the first time they had ever owned a book or even read for pleasure. Now back in Canada, Helaine is spearheading a campaign — Airlift to LA — to stock the shelves of another Los Angeles-area elementary school in the Compton district.

“The three schools I visited were all understaffed, underfunded, and under stocked to the point of breakdown,” explains Becker. “I was completely shocked by how bad the situation was there. The way U.S. schools are funded through property taxes means schools in low-income areas have virtually no ability to meet existing school standards, nor to effectively educate the next generation.

“My hope is that by helping the kids in the Compton-area, we will not only deliver books to kids who need them, but also draw attention to the fact that Canadian school libraries are heading the same way. Our libraries are also dramatically underfunded, in every single province and territory,” explains Becker who recently visited a northern Canadian school whose dusty shelves included books such as The Red Indian and Young John Kennedy. “If you only have a part-time library tech to come in and look after the place one half-day a week, and no funding to restock the shelves with books less than 50 years-old, well, Compton, here we come.”

A long-time advocate for school libraries, Becker sees helping the children in LA as a short-term solution. “The real problem we are trying to address is the systemic problems we face on both sides of the border. Almost none of the school libraries I visit are up to Canadian standards set by the Canadian Library Association,” says Becker who authored a document that allows the public to determine how their school libraries stack up. “If they do the assessment they will see how poorly we are doing and, as a result, why our literacy numbers are going sideways. My hope is that the public will use the results to put pressure on the government to put the funding back where it can do so much good — in a fully-functioning, fully-staffed school library.”
Becker has partnered with Sandra Tsing-Loh, columnist and local celebrity in the LA-area and an advocate for public education, and Rebecca Constantino, founder of Access Books — a non-profit organization which organizes book drives and funding for underserviced school libraries. Last week, Becker shipped approximately 1200 books from over a hundred Canadian authors, publishers and the public to LA. in advance of the book presentation event at Ralph Bunche Elementary School, October 2, 2010.

The event will include author presentations by several Canadian writers including Becker, Wendy Kitts, Rob Weston and Kari-Lynn Winters who will also help refurbish the Bunche school library by sorting and cataloguing books and painting wall murals with the students.

For more information on Airlift to LA go tohttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121216734588705.

To see how your school library “stacks up”, download the Canadian Coalition for School Libraries and Canadian Association for School Libraries Library/Media Assessment Questionnaire athttp://www.scribd.com/doc/36299260/Library-Assessment-Final-Draft


-30-

For further information on Airlift to LA contact:

Wendy Kitts
info@wendykitts.ca
506-382-4360 or 506-852-1600
www.monctonwriters.ca

Helaine Becker
helbeck@rogers.com
647-985-3682
www.helainebecker.com

To send a book donation by October 2, 2010:

Airlift to LA
c/o Access Books
3622 W. Slauson Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90043

What we need now is level heads and wisdom

Today is the 9th anniversary of 9/11, so I suppose a day to commemorate, it seems to me it is a day desperately in need of greater wisdom and less rhetoric.  I know that it is a day of terrible images that I wish I could erase from my own memory if not the memory banks of the world. I know it sounds naive, especially for someone in their mid-fifies, but I wish we could go back to a world before terror gripped America.  It has made the world a much harsher place for people of all faiths, both in and out of the USA.

Having spent the last few days with my youngest daughter, Katie, I am hopeful that young people will do a better job with world politics than their parents have done. Katie will soon be off to Southeast Asia, and then Australia.  My hope for her, is not just to have fun, although I do hope for that.  But, I especially hope that she comes home a wiser young woman.

Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get to Australia while she's over there.

The Book Worm

This is so cool.  The municipality of Oak Bay always does these very cool garden instillations close to where I live, and close to the local high school, Oak Bay High School.  This summer they did a reading bookwork all created with flowers.  Every Monday the title of the book would change.  It's been Treasure Island, Harry Potter, and lots of other great titles.  This week, the book title was OBHS Course Selection Guide.  Too funny.  I love creative people, and creative municipalities!

Happy International Literacy Day

According to UNESCO, about 774 million adults lack minimum literacy skills. One in five adults is still not literate and of these,  two-thirds are women. About 75 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out. However, literacy is also a cause for celebration on the day because there are nearly four billion literate people in the world.  


How can you help raise the world literacy rate?  Support literacy in your community through a cash donation or better still, by donating your time.  Buy a few books for a "have not" school in your community, support UNESCO, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and their partners who work at the international level.  


Literacy is the opportunity for change.  Literacy is an opportunity for a better future.  Those of us who are literate take it for granted.  It's easy to forget how lucky we are.

I Have a Dream...

This speech was given 47 years ago, when I was 9; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream..." speech.  It still resonates today.  It still gives me shivers when I hear it.  There are few leaders today who could come close to Dr. King's oratory abilities.  He was a man of vision.  A man of compassion.  A man who, if he were alive today, would, I'm sur,e be speaking out against poverty and injustice.  I've pasted a few lines of the speech below, but I urge you to follow the link and acquaint or reacquaint yourselves with a man whose message is as relevant today as it was all those years ago.

From "I Have a Dream Speech" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

...I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..."

This and that

It was too cool and windy to have tea outside in the sunshine as usual this morning.  Sure hope that summer isn't over. Will be visiting my friend Margaret today, and she'll want a report on the Mockingjay which I haven't yet had time to read or even pick up for that matter, although I'll try and call into the bookstore before I head out to the airport to pick up a friend returning from Edmonton.  I'll probably bring the book to read on the ferry tomorrow morning since I'm going over for the day.  If I'm lucky I'll get a chance to see my friend Linda Bailey for dinner.  I have her newest Stanley's Little Sister and I want her to sign it before I send it off to my newest little niece, Chloe in Seattle.  Of course I have something for her "big" sister too.

It doesn't pay to disinvite authors, and Mockingjay is out!

Two big news days.  Yesterday Teen Lit Festival in Humble, Texas was cancelled; I gather, due to so many authors pulling out after Ellen Hopkins was disinvited.  I'm sorry to see this happening.  I'd really rather that the decision makers rethought the withdrawal of their invitation to Ms. Hopkins.  In a perfect world I guess...sigh.  So you Humble teens.  You'll just have to get to the library and read.

In other news, today is the release day for Suzanne Collins MockingJay.  I can't believe that my agent Suzie Townsend was lucky enough to get into a bookstore where Ms. Collins was speaking along side of her editor, the equally great David Levithan.  Not only does Suzie have the book, she's already READ it!  I'm not far behind you Suzie.

My idea of a perfect summer day

Yesterday was my idea of a perfect summer day.  Sunny but not too hot.  A lovely breeze.  After a gorgeous bike ride on Lockside trail, a stop a Maddock's farm for ice cream, and a burger downtown, we wandered into Munro's Books along Government St.  I love this bookstore, although I find it dangerous to step through it's impressive (formerly a swanky bank) glass and wood doors.  I think last night's visit set me back a couple of hundred...Yikes.  So many books to read though.  Linda Bailey's new title, Stanley's Little Sister, The Gryphon Project by Carrie Mac (which I've been meaning to read since it won the Sheila Eggoff Prize for YA Literature at the BC Book Prizes), and InkDeath, the last in Cornelia Funke's trilogy which I've yet to read.  So exciting, I'll have to get through these really fast because the fall list will be in soon, and the "too be read piles" will just get higher and higher!

What a view!

Had the most wonderful 3 day visit with my middle daughter, Cloe.  Of course very little writing got done while she was here, but sometimes living life is more important than writing about it.  Today, before she left for a weekend with her girlfriends from high school, we went for a lovely 3 hour walk along Beach Dr. and up to the old observatory.  Here we are at the top.  It's quite the view...so lucky to live in this gorgeous part of the world.  So lucky to have even one of my girls home for a few days.  Hoping to see the other 2 soon.

It's expensive to donate!

In the last week I have sent off book donations to LA airlift due to the empty library shelves in some schools, Raise a Reader for a book auction, and The Elizabeth Fry Society of Saint John New Brunswick, or is it Saint Johns?  I never can remember.

Please don't anyone ask for more book donations...I can't afford the books (you might not be aware that authors have to pay for their own books aside from a few comp copies upon publication which you are supposed to use to help promote the book) or the postage...$47 to give books to people in need!  Yikes.  The total on this latest donation was $200 plus.

Between the Covers B&B and the Saltspring Island Young Adult Book Club

After a wonderful visit on Pender Island, I hopped over to Saltspring Island where my writer friend Margriet Ruurs picked me up.  She and her husband Kees moved to Saltspring and opened up a Book Lover's B&B called Between the Covers last year.  And what a perfect place it is.    If you tire of the quaint outdoor cafes in Ganges overlooking harbor, the dozens of art galleries, or sipping wine at one of three local wineries, the b&b is a perfect place to hang out.  They've outfitted  their poetry and fiction themed suites with shelves of books available for your reading pleasure.  Or you can enjoy the sight of bald eagles catching an updraft, or the smell of lavendar wafting from one of Margriet's fields. It's a perfect place to get back to nature.  When you leave, don't forget to bring a little of the country back home; either with a dozen free range eggs from Margriet's chickens or a bunch of fresh cut lavender.

While I was on Saltspring for work (having been invited to attend a young adult book club that was discussing my novel The Smell of Paint), I was not above enjoying a few of the above mentioned perks at Margriet's B&B.  And, I was lucky enough to be invited to a fabulous pot luck dinner provided by the members of the book club.  Before the night was over, one last treat was in store; slipping into the  hot tub after dark and enjoying the stars and the dramatic sky show of the Perseids meteor shower which was at it's peak.  Life couldn't get much better.

Thanks Saltspring Island Young Adult Book Club, and thanks Margriet for a delightful stay at Between the Covers.  I'd go back again in a heartbeat, and if you haven't been, a shelf full of delightful books awaits you.

Pender Island visit

Had a wonderful time on Pender Island visiting my writer friends Andrea and David Spalding.  Of course it helps that Andrea is a fantastic cook and David has written books and articles about everything from whales to geology.  Andrea has created the most gorgeous labyrinth and I also enjoyed a visit to a couple of their local art galleries, and the island bookstore.  The weather was perfect for a walk out to the nature preserve on South Pender.  Notice the street sign in the picture,   Kloshe Rd.  Kloshe means "a beautiful place" in the Chinook First Nations Language.  I couldn't agree more.

Sedaris & Sushi

Image by apc33 via Flickr

A rainy Saturday morning...meaning I didn't have to jump out of bed to water the garden (the city is in water conservation mode from May through September).  Still reading David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which I may finish if I laze about long enough.  He's very funny but I do prefer longer fiction to short stories.  Later I will be learning how to make sushi with my friend Cathy Takagaki, who is coming over from Saltspring Island and who learned how on her mother's knee.  Can't wait.  I love sushi.

I love my new i-phone

Yeah, my new i-phone has arrived.  Of course it meant transferring everything, but now I can sync my phone with my computer meaning I don't have to update contacts, calendars, and email on both.  I love it!  And the camera is so much better than the one in my old phone.  Check out the path I'm building around the garden (I'm only about 1/4 done but it's looking good). And, I'm still managing to get in 500 words or so a day on the new novel.  That's  nothing compared to the 3000 words Marsha Skrypuch pulls off (aka facebook status), but hey, I do my best.  And now I'm off to have tea (definitely ice tea today!) with my housebound but 'reads more books in a week than I can in a month' friend, Margaret.

Vancouver Folk Music Festival

Had a wonderful time in Vancouver visiting my girls and going to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.  Here are a few pics from the Folk Festival.  As you can see, the crowds were huge, the weather gorgeous, and the setting superb.  The music was pretty awesome too.  Hard to beat.

Below are one of my favorite groups, Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens.  Some of the other groups that were totally awesome were The Malahat Revue with Adidan Knight from Victoria, the Peatbog Faeries from G.B., Sarah Harmer, Tao Seeger (grandson of the great Pete Seeger), Nathan Rogers (son of the   late great Stan Rogers), and the United Steelworkers of Montreal, and these were just a few.