I showed up early in day-job land yesterday, so I could slip out for a couple of hours and go over to Juan Lagunas Soria Elementary School, just south of the Oxnard Airport. The kind book enthusiast who owns Mrs. Figs Bookworm in Camarillo had put out an email to the local authors she knows, alerting us to a fun opportunity. Soria School was looking for guests to come for this year's Read Across America Day.

The theme of the day was evident from the moment I walked in the door.



Read Across America is an annual event sponsored by the National Education Association. It's actually held on March 2, the birthday of Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss, but for some reason Soria School was holding it on the 7th. There was still plenty of Dr. Seuss gear around, including "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" (and beyond) t-shirts on all the school staff. Nobody was wearing the big stripey hats, though. They were ready for their authors, and even had a nice table of water bottles and snacks for us. I was the first one on the schedule, and they were especially glad to see me because normally they only got authors of books for younger kids. Authors who write for middle schoolers haven't been as common.

One of the assistants took me out in the school's central courtyard, heading to the multi-purpose room so I could set up. One thing that still strikes me as odd about Southern California schools is the way many of the classrooms open directly to the outside instead of to an interior hallway. You could never do that in a Midwestern winter - and maybe even in a Southern California winter, because just as we stepped outside, a big gust of wind blew a sudden rainstorm onto us. The arriving children scattered in all directions, and my escort dashed off to handle the situation, leaving me standing there under an awning, wondering what I was supposed to do. Eventually, I found my way to my venue, a large room that serves as gymnasium, auditorium and cafeteria.



I'd prepared my presentation two ways, both with and without a small PowerPoint presentation, because I didn't know what sort of computer resources would be available. As it turned out, I could have included the PowerPoint very easily, but I'd had a technology glitch at home that kept me from bringing it. I was able to call up my author website on the screen, but otherwise I was completely old school. Fortunately, they did have a flip-chart I could use to work math problems. My version of Fibonacci's rabbit problem (using gremlins instead of rabbits) was as successful as it had been when I tried it on my niece Leyna's class back in November. My attempts to use the math subjects the kids were studying had mixed results. My ratio problem for the seventh graders went well, but my exponent problem for the eighth graders fell kind of flat. Something to learn for next time.



I didn't sell any books, although I did donate my complete Royal Fireworks range to the school library. We're talking about doing an evening book signing event with all the authors, partnering with the school and/or Mrs. Figs Bookworm, but that's a discussion for another time. That particular day was about getting kids interested in reading and writing and learning. In these times, with one of our major political parties being taken over by an authoritarian who loves "the poorly educated," I've found a new sense of purpose in what I do. All learning is valuable, but my books in particular are about using logic and reason and facts to solve problems and make good decisions. Helping people discover how to do that may be the most important contribution I can make right now.