The Magic Stick

Awesome teacher Ms. Nielsen-Drake and me with the Magic Stick! Note her gorgeous shawl from Chiapas, Mexico-- where part of my next book is set!

Hey guys!

I just got back from a fun visit to Steele Elementary in Colorado Springs... the fourth-graders read Star in the Forest and the fifth graders read What the Moon Saw. I absolutely LOVED hearing about all the connections the kids made with the books-- their interpretations and insights-- and most of all, how they took the idea of the Magic Stick (in Star in the Forest) and ran with it!  (For those of you who haven't read the book, the Magic Stick is a kind of metaphor for kindness, courage, and strength in the face of upsetting situations.)

Here's Ms. Nielsen-Drake's explanation of how the stick has become a vibrant part of her classroom!  (I changed the kids' names to first initials):

L wrote that he thought he needed a "magic stick" like Zitlally's. And then wrote, "Just kidding." I wrote back with, "Done!" And put a beautiful stick on his desk that looks like a bird's head. The stick has ended up with a life of its own in my class. Every time someone is feeling sad or in need of some comfort, he/she either asks L for it, or someone else thinks he/she needs it, and it ends up on that child's desk the next day. E's grandpa died. Someone put the stick on her desk. Today it was W's rat dying because his little brother dropped him, and so Will had the stick all day. It is SOOOOO sweet, the life that this stick has taken on! The other cool thing is that kids notice when someone, other than the "keeper-of-the-stick" L, has the stick and become very considerate and kind of that person. Isn't that amazing?

Me again: How cool is that?!  I can't tell you how much I LOVE this!  Thank you, L, for starting this tradition, and becoming the keeper of the magic stick.  And thank you to Ms. Nielsen-Drake and her amazing students for their kindness and creativity!  This is the stuff a writer's dreams are made of!

Manitou Springs

My whole trip was a treat! I stayed in the Avenue Bed and Breakfast in Manitou Springs (giant thanks to the awesome owners, Randy and Gwen, and Natalie of Black Cat Books, and the Manitou Springs Library friends and Author Fest organizers).


 Avenue B n B

Thanks to everyone involved for a refreshing and energizing author visit!

xo,
Laura

PS -- Some nice news-- The Queen of Water has been selected for School Library Journal's Best Books of 2011 list!  Yippee!  It's also on the TAYSHAS list, which is an important reading list for students in Texas!  Thank you, SLJ and TEXAS!!

Back from Michigan!

Hello everyone!

Just got back from author visits to Lansing and Ann Arbor, where I had a blast with students from Haslett High, Greenhills School, the International Book club at the East Lansing Library, and the folks at Ann Arbor Library... I loved meeting so many cool teachers and students and librarians and writers and readers... such a treat! 

I also went to my dad's retirement party in Grand Rapids... Lil Dude was with me, which made things extra wild and crazy (he has so much energy he literally bounces off walls).  He was great on the plane ride, but I still feel utterly exhausted at the moment... I'd like to sleep about 20 hours...

More good news has been coming in about Star in the Forest... the latest is that it's an Americas Award Commended Book!  I love the Americas Award... Red Glass was a winner a few years ago, and What the Moon Saw was an honor book.  You can read more about the award here.

I also found out that Star in the Forest is currently a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in the Juvenile category, and The Ruby Notebook is a finalist in the Young Adult Category... yay! Thank you, Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book! 



So excited to go to Aspen again with Lil Dude and Ian for the awards ceremony in June... and the best part is that I'll get to be with my talented, fun friends who are also finalists:

Amy Kathleen Ryan for Zen and Xander (YA, another Fort Collins author and good friend!)

Todd Mitchell for The Secret to Lying (YA--  yet another Fort Collins author and good friend!)

Nancy Bo Flood  for Warriors in the Crossfire (Juvenile, she's one of the brilliant authors behind The Pirate Tree blog!)

Congrats everyone!  I can't wait to cheer each other on in Aspen...

I also wanted to let you know that The Pirate Tree (mentioned above)-- a wonderful new blog about social justice and children's literature-- is featuring The Queen of Water this week. There's a thoughtful review/article on domestic slavery and The Queen of Water and an interview with me... And next week it will be featuring Star in the Forest!  A huge thank you to Lyn Miller-Lachmann and Nancy Bo Flood for their work on this incredible blog (and for their important books)!

Hmmm... I feel like there's more news, but my brain isn't cooperating now... I'll try to remember and write more soon!  Hope everyone's enjoying springtime!

xo,
Laura

Getting ready for the Ruby party...

view from the French castle-prison Le Chateau d'If  -- a setting in The Ruby Notebook

Hey guys,

So, I've been re-(re-re-re-re)-reading The Ruby Notebook in preparation for the party on Saturday (which you are all invited to-- Old Firehouse Books, 232 Walnut St, Old Town Fort Collins, 7 pm, Oct 2).  Another reason I'm reading it is to make sure my Jade Notebook draft-in-progress is on track with voice and plot and relationships.


At school visits, I'm often asked how it feels to read a finished, bound book that I wrote myself... and I have to say that although it's exciting, it's also a little excruciating.  When an innocent reader reads one of my books, she can (hopefully) just get swept away by the story, but when I read it, I'm simultaneously remembering the angst, sweat, tears (and probably blood at some point) that went into every chapter, every scene, every paragraph, and in some torturous cases, into a sentence or even word.  I remember the many revisions that each section went through-- all the changes in character and plot and dialogue that I agonized over... And although part of me can kick back and enjoy the ride, part of me is re-living some of the more painful moments of the writing/revising process all over again.  So.... it's a mixed bag!

That said, when I reached the end of reading The Ruby Notebook yesterday, I felt happy and satisfied overall, and I hope that for you, dear reader, the story simply sweeps you away to southern France for a few delicious hours...

The next step in preparing for the release party (now that the 100 pastries are ordered from Jean-Claude and Thomas the accordionist is getting his playlist ready) is figuring out what I'm going to talk about between the sweets and music.  I usually read a few short scenes and give background as to what inspired them.  Here's a little sneak preview of a few things I'm thinking I might mention:

The quirky fountains that are central to one of the subplotos...

Entremont, the Celto-Liguric ruins that I love visiting, just outside of Aix, where a scene is set...

The islands near the old port of Marseille, where Zeeta and Wendell visit...

Le Chateau d'If -- The Castle of If-- the setting for part of  The Count of Monte Cristo and for part of my book...

The funny faces over doorways and windows....

This man who often plays guitar in the Place de la Mairie, who inspired a scary character who was cut during a later revision... (desolee, monsieur!)

the ancient, narrow roads through which my friend and I secretly followed the movie star Timothy Dalton one night (he'd most recently starred in a James Bond flick and was shooting a new movie in the area)...

the old, odd dried-up fountains hidden in courtyards....

the gypsy-esque street performers on the Place de la Mairie...

the pigeons, oh, the pigeons...

On a different note, let's not forget little Star in the Forest in the midst of The Ruby Notebook excitement...  here's a blurb from a lovely blog review posted by Peaceful Reader, a librarian at an elementary school:

This book is a perfect gem for elementary students.... I can't wait to introduce this to students at Highland as we have a large Hispanic population and many of our students live in a one of two close trailer parks.  I think reading Star in the Forest will give students an instant connection to Zitlally and her family, no matter their background or where they live, because she is a very real and loveable character.

Thank you, Peaceful Reader! I'm so excited that teachers and librarians want to share this book with their students... I'm in the process of setting up a few author visits to elementary schools whose fourth and fifth graders are reading the book. It'll be fun to branch out from the middle and high school levels that I've visited for my YA books...

Thanks for reading, and hope to see you at the Ruby Soiree this Saturday!

xo
Laura