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Publicity guru Donna Spurlock of Charlesbridge informs me that my beloved Naima's story (pronounced "Na-ee-mah's Stow-ree"), Rickshaw Girl, is getting a nice review in the April issue of School Library Journal. Good thing, as I'm partially responsible for the lead article in the next issue of SLJ's Curriculum Connections, which also comes out in April. And, according to an authoritative source, the book apparently gets a good review in the May/June issue of the Horn Book Magazine, too. Hooray for Naima!

Yes, I know it's 1:26 a.m. Yes, I am still awake and writing like a mad woman. But how did Fuse #8 know I'd need a boost right now? And how does she manage to publish a new deluge of posts just after midnight every day? These and other mysteries of the blogging galaxy continue to astound my already befuddled brain. Anyway, here's Fuse's lovely review of Rickshaw Girl for your reading pleasure. It inspired me like a cheering fan at the 24-mile marker of the Boston Marathon. Hobble on, my love. The finish line's near.

While we're waiting for the Cybils Awards announcement, I want to share some photos of my beautiful, talented mother in action painting alpana on my California Dreamin' mini book tour, along with one of me signing a copy of Rickshaw Girl as a Valentine for my Fire Escape friends ... that's you!

At Towne Center Books in Pleasanton ...



Where Baba welcomes visitors
and displays Ma's alpana:



At Cody's Books in Berkeley ...







Lots of old friends and new friends, like
blogger buddy Jen Robinson, showed up:

I'm heading off tonight to California for a wild long weekend. Here's the schedule:

• Friday, February 9, 10-2: Redwood Middle School, Saratoga. Writer's workshop and two assemblies.
  
  
• Saturday, February 10, 10-12: Towne Center Books, Pleasanton. Reading of Rickshaw Girl and alpana drawing demonstration by my mother, Madhusree Bose.
  
  
• Saturday, February 10, 3-5:30: California Association of Teachers of English Conference, Fresno. Book signing and workshop, "Books Between Cultures."
  
  
• Sunday, February 11, 4: Cody's Books, Berkeley. Reading of Rickshaw Girl and Ma's drawing demo #2.
  
  
• Monday, February 12, 10-2: San Francisco Waldorf School. Author visit and alpana art lesson, sponsored by Paper Tigers.

Speaking of book awards like the Cybils (winners TBA on 2/14), I want to let everybody know that Rickshaw Girl has won a prize, too. Yes, I'm thrilled to announce that my newest book has just secured the...

Thanks to one and all who packed the cellar of Wellesley Booksmith on Saturday for my book launch party. What a show of support and love! Alison Morris, the children's book buyer at the store, told me they sold 43 copies of Rickshaw Girl (have no idea if that's a goodly quantity but I thought fellow writers might be interested in some real numbers), the wonderful folks at Charlesbridge provided samosas, drinks, and bangles, and several cyber folk appeared in bodily form like avatars. If you missed it, a brief clip's coming soon on the Fire Escape ... or else I'll see you in California next weekend!

It's 1996. I'm returning to our ancestral property in Bangladesh fifty-some years after my Hindu parents fled during the war. The Muslim man who lives there now looks suspicious as I approach, and I don't blame him. After all, my ancestors hated his with a passion, and I suspect the feeling was mutual. As we begin speaking, though, two white doves fly down and perch over the entrance to the house where my father was born. They stay during my entire visit, even while I go inside to chat, laugh, and share tea with the women and girls. (If you think I'm drifting from the genre of blogging into fiction, check out the photo I took that day.)

Today, as we send Rickshaw Girl out like one of those doves, I think of my tiny paternal grandmother who raised nine children on that jute farm. Barely educated herself, she made sure my father had a hot meal of rice and fish and lentils after his long walk from school, and enough kerosene in the lamp to do his homework. I think of my maternal great-grandmother, forced to marry my great-grandfather when she was nine and he was eighteen. (If you're curious about their post-nuptial details, you'll have to wait for The Secret Keeper/Asha Means Hope. But do some math in the meantime: her youngest child was a dozen years younger than my mother.)

The novelist and poet Alice Walker remembered the women who came before her in a famous 1974 essay called In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South:

In the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., there hangs a quilt unlike any other in the world. In fanciful, inspired, and yet simple and identifiable figures, it portrays the story of the Crucifixion. It is considered rare, beyond price. Though it follows no known pattern of quiltmaking, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling. Below this quilt I saw a note that says it was made by "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago." If we could locate this "anonymous" Black woman, she would turn out to be one of our grandmothers - an artist who left her mark in the only materials she could afford, and in the only medium her position in society allowed her to use.

Here's an updated list of bloggers who've read Rickshaw Girl:

• PlanetEsme
• MomReady
• The Edge Of The Forest
• Reader's Rants
• Gather Around A Table With A Good Book
• MotherReader
• Literary Safari
• InfoDad
• A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy

I'm glad you stopped by. Please stay a while, find out more about my writing, or check out some other great sites in the "places to go" list of links in the sidebar. I'm madly revising book two of the First Daughter series, but I'll be back out on the fire escape to celebrate the launch of Rickshaw Girl on 2/1/07.

In the meantime, you're welcome to download a classroom discussion guide, an excerpt, and a Q&A about why I wrote Rickshaw Girl, as well as read a bunch of reviews. Also, if you're near Boston, Massachusetts or in the San Francisco Bay Area, you're cordially invited to one of my book launch events:

Saturday, February 3rd at 3 p.m. at Wellesley Booksmith, 82 Central Street, Wellesley, Ma (781) 431-1160.

Saturday, February 10th at 10:00 a.m. at Towne Center Books, 555 Main St., Pleasanton, Ca (925) 846-8826.

Sunday, February 11th at 4 p.m. at Cody's Books, 1730 4th St., Berkeley, Ca (510) 559-9500.

Hot off the presses, here are some .pdf files for your reading pleasure:

1. A Q&A about how and why I wrote Rickshaw Girl (Charlesbridge, February 2007).
   
   
2. Page one and page two of my interview with 11-year-old Emily of G9 Girls Magazine.
   
   
3. Page 35 in Penguin/Putnam's Spring Catalog featuring my forthcoming novel,
   First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (Dutton, June 2007).