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Guest blogger Evette Rios is regularly featured on the syndicated TV talk show, “Rachael Ray.” Evette Rios has also designed on camera for HGTV’s “Freestyle”, and TLC’s “In A Fix.” Evette Rios designs interiors through her firm Sitio, bringing experience working in several of Manhattan’s top interior firms. A graduate of Bates College, Evette Rios also attended both Parsons School of Design and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. Evette Rios also shares her design advice in spanish in “Siempre Mujer” magazine.

Walking into The Brooklyn Brownstone School, I couldn’t help but feel elated to see painted on the foundation of their building the following motto: “creating a community of lifelong learners.” It was a thrill to visit the class of precocious second graders! They were all very interested in my read-aloud of Mercy Watson to the Rescue. They even acted out scenes and tried to predict the ending!

We gathered in the library for reading time, I shared a bit of my history with the kids (after all, I’m a Brooklyn girl myself) and we made bookmarks shaped like a pig to tie in with the theme of the story.

My friends from Eight O’Clock Coffee and Candlewick Press provided two brand new books for each child with the help of First Book. They were heroes, donating 250 books for the school – two for every student! But, the real heroes were the children, who delighted in each word and enthusiastically participated in making crafts and story time. Once they received their books, many kids had them opened to chapter 6, the page where we last left Mercy in our read-aloud. They couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

It was a treat for me to join the students of the Brooklyn Brownstone School. I know we were able to make a difference in the next chapter of their lives.

Still in revision on the Sci-Fi, but occasionally returning for scans of a YA novel, "Black Crane," that was finished, revised a few times, and laid aside last summer. It seems ready for trying to interest an agent or publisher, but perhaps it will have to wait until after the Sci-Fi effort plays out. Taking into account some of what has been discussed in blogs by literary agents, a query for "Black Crane" might contain the following:

What do you do with all that built up discipline when your army general mom goes off to Iraq, and you’re sent with your siblings to live with your absentee dad?

Sixteen-yr. old Caitlin is ready to break out into her own life, but that’s kind of hard to do when General Rose Su Wei expects her to be the Rock of Gibraltar to her younger sister and older brother. Her dad, Cyrus McCormick, expects life will go on as usual while they’re living with him, but he’s clueless about things like peer pressures, soft drug use, and drinking, that go on at the high school parties. As a new high school newspaper reporter, Caitlin is keen on learning all about these things. Her articles alienate her cryptic editor, and a libertarian, athletic boy named Cody, a karate champ. Caitlin, trained by her mother, is no slouch at karate, either. An intense love-hate relationship between her and Cody leads to the epic battle of The Black Crane vs. The Golden Dragon.

Energies feel divided now, and perhaps the Black Crane effort should have been carried through to the query stage. It was probably a question of confidence.