“We dug tunnels and secret rooms under the snow.”
Blizzard by John Rocco -a book trailer from John Rocco on Vimeo.
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By: Sally Lloyd-Jones,
on 2/19/2013
The Blizzard came and transformed the city.
Before the snow ploughs and the footprints and the salt and the dirt could arrive, I got up early to capture it.
I stepped out of my apartment—and into Narnia. Complete with lampposts.
Everywhere, everything was brimming with light. Beauty that catches in your throat. Sudden brightness—shining in the air, in the trees, in the skies, at your feet. 
Every moment a new landscape. The early pink skies and the gentle light on the snow cushions on benches. The afternoon sunlight that turns trees to crystal, and a park into an enchanted forest.
Snow making everything beautiful. Covering over the ugliness, making everything look new. Almost as if the world has been made again and we are coming upon it for the first time.
Is it the world—or our eyes, that are made new?
A friend reminded me of a lovely C S Lewis quote about children and snow -
"Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Haven't you ever noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children—and the dogs? They know what snow's made for." [C S Lewis, The Hideous Strength]
Children’s eyes are new. They can see what we have become blind to.
Wonder.
Snow reminds me.
I would like to live every day with the eyes of a child.
I would like to unlearn what I’ve learned.
I would like to step out of my apartment every day with new eyes to see what is always all around me, shining at my feet.
SLJ.
5 stars Whoever Heard Of A Fird? Othello Bach Shann Hurst 60 Pages Ages: 7+ ………….. Back Cover: If you haven’t heard of a fird, part fish, part bird, you don’t know that he’s looking for a head of fird. He wants to find out if he’s “firding” right. You see, Fird was raised by [...]
By: Darcy Pattison,
on 7/15/2011
Note: Fiction Notes is on vacation until August 1. See you then!
Last year, I interviewed Joelle Anthony about her use of a GoodReads giveaway to promote her book. One of her biggest reasons to go with GoodReads is that she had 1348 people enter the giveaway.
Here are some other interesting statistics from GoodReadshere and here:
Wow, that sounds good to me. Let’s try it!
So–ENTER! It’s FREE!
I’ll report back on the results of the giveaway after it closes on August 10.
By: Anne Spollen,
on 2/10/2010
The big news here is the weather. I'm trying to type as fast as I can as the Internet keeps dropping and the power is blinking on and off. It's kind of like living in post-war London. This is our backyard:
and the view from the table where we usually eat (sort of a breakfast nook)
Of course, the kittens have never experienced winter, but I like their take on the cold and the snow:
The kids are, of course, home. I walked by Emma's room a few minutes ago and heard this conversation:
Christopher: Why do you want me to light a candle for you?
Emma: To see if gum is flammable or not.
Christopher: What would you possibly do with that information once you found out? That's an entirely useless thing to want to figure out.
I didn't worry too much about Philip because he was on Facebook, and at least he was doing something relatively normal even if it is cyber-socializing. Then he sent me this picture:
What is that? It's the Asian version of a baby I would have if my genes were mated with Cami's - one of our kittens. Apparently, there's a Facebook application that does such a thing.
I keep telling myself that spring is really just around the corner.
By: Laura Purdie Salas,
on 3/10/2009
The week before last, I drove a couple of hours south of here (Minneapolis) to Albert Lea, a city close to the Minnesota/Iowa border, for two days of school visits. I wanted to share a bit about that, and because I wanted to try a new (well, new to me, anyway) Facebook application called Picnik, y'all are getting the Picniked version of the pix. So forgive the chaotic look overall--I wanted to try different features/effects:>)
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| Here's the view out of my hotel room window on Tuesday, when I arrived. |
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| The first day, at Hawthorne Elementary, went wonderfully. The media center had tons of my books on display... |
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| and the kids were great (and the teachers, too, as well as Susie and Joyce, the two library clerks)! The day flew by, but the weather forecast was grim for Thursday. Tons of snow predicted. |
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| Brenda, the librarian at both elementaries, was fantastic. Well-organized, enthusiastic...even when we had to decide in an early-Thursday phone call to crunch the day of visits into a morning of visits so that we'd be prepared for the school to close early at mid-day, if that happened. |
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| Not only did Brenda have to organize a new schedule an hour before school started, she also had to change it 3 minutes before the first group was due because the music teacher needed the 6th graders for a rehearsal. It was a little chaotic and the schedule changed more than once, mid-presentation. But flexibility was our mantra and we had a good time. |
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| I presented to each entire school each day in four sessions, so there were some fairly large groups. But the kids were great participators--we partner read poems (with feeling!), made animal sound effects, and wrote group poems. And I got to share Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School! They were excited to see a book that wasn't even officially published yet. |
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| Each of the kindergarten classes at Sibley Elementary had written class animal acrostics and decorated them. What a treat to have them share their poems aloud! There were several great projects in the hallways at both schools, too. In the midst of this, we got word that school was indeed closing early. I hit the highway about 12:30, in light sleet. Which then turned to snow. I have no pictures of it because I was concentrating on staying alive. |
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| I-35 was a ghostly white world, and I couldn't even see the cars ahead of me. Couldn' tell where the edges of the highway were. Too dangerous to even pull to the side! Finally, I pulled into a rest stop to de-ice my chunked-up windows. Here's how I looked after clearing my window. I was soaking wet, covered in snow...and not happy. |
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| And it was all for nothing, anyway. |
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| After two scary hours, in which I made it about 30 miles, I stopped at a hotel in Northfield (site of a famous Jesse James bank robbery) for the night. The snow was so thick I couldn't find the entrance to the parking lot! This shot was taken the next morning after everything was plowed. I spent the night with Billy Collins (ok, ok, just with his new book Ballistics) and then had a blissfully uneventful drive home on Friday! |
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| And now...just playing with a few Picnik effects on my bizarre/angry/scared picture! |
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| Anybody else remember Kai's Power Goo? I loved that program. |
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| Cool! I'm in neon. |
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| I love this effect. Beautiful, even if the picture isn't! |
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| Seeing red? Or being seen red, anyway. |
LOL!!!
Yikes! Kids are great - even when it's a loooooong winter :)
Too funny.
Oh wow,
Thank you for sharing. The funny things children do & say!
All the best,
RKCharron
ROFL! At least you know where your kids are and what they're doing! I do hope the power stays on.
Hahahaha. Now I've got to see what my cat-babies would look like.
And I wonder if chewing gum IS flammable?
Well, thanks, guys. I keep thinking other people's kids are inside putting molecule models together or practicing the violin (we have both those opportunities here, but no takers - though the drum set is used pretty regularly)
We DID lose power last night. It was sort of fun with candles and flashlights. At least Emma decided she wouldn't have done well in the Middle Ages.
Now we are iced in. No school again, and the power is pretty much on, just surges. No tv, and the Internet keeps dropping. We'll see how today goes; it's one day closer to spring --
Want to see what your baby would look like if you were mated with a cat, and also Asian? There's an app for that. :p
I love those snow pictures! So much more pleasant to look at pictures of snow than to have to deal with the snow myself. Stay warm!
So much snow! Glad I don't have to live in it though, but I'd love to visit.
LOL! Never a dull moment in your home!