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Tomorrow at 4:00 PM I'll be speaking at the Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington, Vermont. That's why I've been tweeting Ethan Allen articles lately.

This will not be my first visit to the Homestead. You can see me sitting in front of the reproduction of the home Allen shared with his trophy wife, Fanny. That was taken back in the '90s while I was working on The Hero of Ticonderoga. That book, and my spin on why Ethan Allen was such a wild man, will be the focus of my presentation. If my traveling companion is able to get a decent (by which I mean a flattering) picture on my cell phone, I'll post it at Facebook. I may also try to tweet it.

We're taking a long weekend in the Green Mountains, so I don't expect to be back at Original Content until Wednesday. I hope to be biking Monday and hitting relatives along Rte. 7 on our way south on Tuesday.

Today is Ethan Allen's two hundred and seventy-first birthday. We celebrated here at Chez Gauthier with a cake and a stonewall, a vile drink Ethan is supposed to have been fond of tossing back.

Stonewalls are made with warm cider and rum. I'm not fond of rum, myself, so I mulled the cider first, thinking that might mask the flavor. Not a particularly good idea. On top of that, I believe Ethan's stonewalls were made with hard cider, which isn't particularly easy to find around here these days.

In addition, we picked the winner of the copy of The Hero of Ticonderoga. So someone will actually be receiving a gift to celebrate Ethan's birthday.

I didn't make that cake, by the way. Not that I couldn't have. I am perfectly capable of making a cake, just so you know. I could have decorated it, too, if I had been feeling ambitious. However, this is a work day, and what with the holidays, vacation, snowstorms to deal with, and what have you, I haven't done much work this past month. I couldn't justify taking more time off to bake a cake for someone who would never see it because...he's been dead for over two hundred years.

I'm not actually crazy.

I'm here today to remind you that you still have a week to wish Ethan Allen a happy birthday, thus earning yourself a chance to win a copy of The Hero of Ticonderoga.

As it turns out, I'm spending the week in the New Hampshire Grants. On Sunday, I wasn't far from Ethan Allen's final home. That same day I drove by the chapel named for his brother. (From what I know of that family, naming a chapel for any of them would have left their contemporaries scratching their heads in wonder.), as well as the hospital named, in part, for his daughter, Fanny. (Fanny, the daughter of at least an ardent agnostic if not a hardcore atheist, became a Roman Catholic nun, proving, once again, that God has one heck of a sense of humor.)

The Big E's birthday is two weeks from today. Get your birthday wishes in now for your chance at winning a signed copy of The Hero of Ticonderoga, which deals with a sixth grade student who finds herself forced to do an oral report on Vermont's famous old dead guy.

Now, I'm interested in this nearly eight-year-old book because I'm the author, and I have a box of copies of the thing. But why should you care? Well, Hero was an ALA Notable back in 2002, right around the time I started blogging but before most of you knew me. And the ALA citation includes the word "ribald." How often do you suppose that happens?

In addition, the book has been used in schools in Vermont and New York. Just last month it was used as an enrichment-type reader for a fifth grade class in Connecticut during its Revolutionary War unit.

If you're thinking, "Ew. That sounds educational and improving," remember, the ALA used the word "ribald" when describing it. Don't you want to be the one to give your school something like that?

By the way, no portraits of Ethan Allen exist. Thus that incredibly unflattering depiction of him at the site I linked to was just pulled out of the air.

It's been a while since I've given away any books here, so I thought I'd give a copy of The Hero of Ticonderoga away this month because Ethan Allen's birthday is in January. Not that Hero is technically about Ethan Allen. But he does figure in the story. And I just like him, so we're going to celebrate his birthday here.

More details to follow.

A Guide to Fiction Set in Vermont for Children & Young Adults by Ann McKinstry Micou was published this spring by the Vermont Humanities Council. Both my Vermont books, The Hero of Ticonderoga and Saving the Planet & Stuff are included in the guide.

Too bad Planet has gone out of print, huh? I've just had the rights reverted to me, which means that when I can get organized and serious I can try to find a paperback publisher for it.

Author: Jack Prelutsky (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Arnold Lobel
Published: 1988 Harper Trophy (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0688115691 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Full of meaty words, infectious beats and fact*-based blackish humour, this invigorating feast of illustrated, dinosaur poems is permanently woven into the fabric of our family.

*The facts upon which the poems are based are twenty years out-of-date — but what’s twenty years between 225 million year old friends?

Author: Jack Prelutsky (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Arnold Lobel
Published: 1988 Harper Trophy (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0688115691 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Full of meaty words, infectious beats and fact*-based blackish humour, this invigorating feast of illustrated, dinosaur poems is permanently woven into the fabric of our family.

*The facts upon which the poems are based are twenty years out-of-date — but what’s twenty years between 225 million year old friends?