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Had a terrific visit last week with the St. Peter 8th grade English classes. The students were wonderful listeners and had great questions. They had all read Chasing AllieCat, so it was much, much fun to get to talk with them! Thanks, Ms. Hughes!

Time is flying past!
It's April 10 already! And look at the ground! Freya's happy--she was crazy this morning, playing "Grab Mom's warm stuff and run." (Question of the day: How many exclamation marks can one writer use in one short blog post?)

I just spent two SPECTACULAR days in Clive, Iowa. I visited CRESTVIEW ELEMENTARY and INDIAN HILLS JUNIOR HIGH. The kids were wonderful, and we had so much fun talking about writing, dogs (Freya got to go with me!), and bikes.

I have to get ready for another school day at South Central College, so I don't have time to write much, but I'll post more as soon as I have some pictures. I had a TERRIFIC time. So did Freya, but she's pretty tired right now!

Thanks, Clive students. You ROCK!

Slider's Son garnered its second rejection this week. "Not enough historical detail" is what Calkins Creek said. George is baffled by that (maybe more than I am, even), so he's going to ask them what they meant by that. In the meantime, I'm going to spread in some more Depression-era details into the manuscript. I was mostly concerned with the character in the small town and making his life real. Guess I'll try to make the national news come home to roost more than it does already.

I have some ideas. I'm going to add some of them this weekend.

I wish I could get a book right the first time. Or second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth. Wonder what it means that I have to revise at least TWELVE times before anything gets published.

It mostly means that I should do nothing but write and maybe I'd get a book done WAY faster (and be with my kids, and be with friends, and ride my bike, and play with Freya--oh, yeah, and teach and grade papers).

Oh, well. I'm heading out on my bike to THINK in a few minutes.

Recently Neil Gaiman and Shaun Tan sat down at the Sydney Opera House to discuss their work.  The result is a series of interviews on the opera house’s website.  I once was speaking to a musician about Shaun Tan and offered the fellow his contact information when Gaiman swoops over and says that not only does he know Mr. Tan but he owns some of his original art.  I came this close to yelling at him, “Doggone it, Neil!  I’m trying to impress someone over here!”  Thanks to @chavelaque for the link.

Kid fans are great.  Particularly when they like books.  Especially when they make raps about them.  Here we have the talented niece of James Kennedy who posted this on her own blog recently.  She’s pretty good at holding that camera, rapping, and turning the pages all at the same time.

David Almond is always worth listening to, particularly if he’s speechifying.  Here you can find him receiving the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award.  Very cool.

I won’t embed it, but the other day Jeanne Birdsall (author of The Penderwicks n’ such) wrote this to me and it is fantastic.  Said she: “Did you know that if –  on the SLJ on-line home page — you click on BLOGS, rather than on any of the actual blogs (yours, Heavy Metal, etc.), you get this? I can’t figure out which thrills me more — that the SLJ webmaster picked this video, or the spam comments that come after.

http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/2010/06/10/slj-test-video/#comments”

Sweet child of mine, that was awesome.

And for our off-topic video (if that wasn’t off-topic enough) we have French students lip-synching and . . . well.  If this doesn’t perk up your day then your day is unperk-up-able.

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.