Los Angeles Festival of Books

I had a fantastic time at the Los Angeles Festival of Books yesterday. People, people, people everywhere. Excited about books.

Moments: The wonderful "green room" where the food was terrific, and the staff had authors moving in and out to their presentations as if it were an airport. Seeing Steve Wasserman, a fellow Berkeley High School student. Heused to be Mr. Los Angles Book Review, and is now in NYC agenting, doing well in his new life. Tea with Susan Patron, another tea with Judy Blundell, a member of my beloved posse, and our friend Jane Mason. Our National Ambasador for Young People's Literature, Jon Scieszka, on the big, empy, windswept stage telling his funny story about pee and urine to an uneven audience who just couldn't quite get with the boy humor (not for lack of trying of Jon's part!) The panel I moderated was terrific -- great stories, laughter, serious moments, lots of information imparted.

But my photo taking capacity fell far short! Actually, the digital-moving-of-photos was where I really scrubbed. I seem to have erased rather than moved most of the photos. Here's just a couple.
Candace Fleming on the left, Kathleen Krull in the middle, and Kadir Nelson on the right.

Candace's husband, Eric Rohmann, was with her, and I fell in love with his scrapbook/journal that he carries with him, drawing and jotting notes. He let me take these two photos of a couple spreads. Wonderful to see his process of leaping from idea to idea.

Earth Day and spring and friendship are in the air

Girls out for a hike on Earth Day. I love my friends, just like this, even if it doesn't always show.

And here are the flowers at Full Belly Farm's stand at the farmer's market. Spring, brought to you by the armload.

San Francisco Public Library Laureate's dinner, upcoming events

I had a fantastic time at the San Francisco Library Laureate dinner on Friday night. I was crazy-worried about what to wear. My friend Julie Downing's wise counsel: "Simple. Just wear black." Brainwave. Black pants, black jacket with a nice way the fabric fell, and a great scarf. I LOVED the people sitting at my table. No one under 75, I'd guess. One man told me he'd met my father in Qualalampur in 1962! (You never forget my father once you've met him.)

The woman seated next to me was tiny and wore a black net coat with hundreds of bright yellow leather leaves sewn all over the netting, an amber necklace, rings on many of her fingers, and maybe 50 bangles. She was the walking embodiment of "when I'm old, I shall wear purple." I couldn't resist and finally asked, "how old are you, anyway?' She leaned in and whispered, "don't tell anyone, but tomorrow I turn 89." I shared my vegetarian dinner with her when she was given an inedible leg of duck, and she shared half her meringue dessert in return.

"I hope you speak first," she said after dinner, "so I can go home." Alas, she had to stay to the bitter end, but said she would buy my book, Big Cat Pepper, to help her eight year old grandson get used to the idea that she was going to die.

Thank you, thank you, whoever put out those place cards, for sitting such a wonderful woman next to me.

Here's my husband (didn't need to wear black to look handsome) standing with the revered guest of the evening, Charles Darwin.

Upcoming Events: This Sunday I'll be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, moderating a tremendous panel of writers:

Young Hall CS 24, 11 a.m.

Kid Wise: Teaching with Words & Pictures
Moderator Ms. Elizabeth Partridge
Ms. Candace Fleming
Ms. Kathleen Krull
Mr. Kadir Nelson

Don't worry, we're not going to stick too tightly to the "teaching" part of the title! Come say hello!

Just how long does it take from idea to picture book?

The inspiration for Big Cat Pepper was my then-seven year old son, Willie, grabbing handfuls of rose petals and scattering them into the open grave on top of his favorite pet, Ratty Three.

Now a grad student in Evolutionary Ecology, Will has just co-published a paper in the ISME Journal: "Rhizobitoxine producers gain more poly-3-hydroxybutyrate in symbiosis than do competing rhizobia, but reduce plant growth

William C Ratcliff and R Ford Denison
Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Legume sanctions against rhizobia that fix less nitrogen should exert a strong selection for more beneficial genotypes of rhizobia, but strains providing little host benefit are common.... ISME Journal advance online publication, 9 April 2009; doi:10.1038/ismej.2009.38."

That's how long.

Battle of the Books

My Battle of the Books decision -- a heart-rending choice between Freedman's Washington at Valley Forge and Anderson's Chains -- is up on School Library Journal and Twitter. Jonathan Hunt professes shock at my decision!

And check this out: the Everdeen Sisters rap Now or Never (Battle of the Book style). Awesome talent!

Battle of the Books, We the People bookshelf grants

It's heating up over at the Battle of the Books. Catch their tweets here. "Judge Partridge" they're calling me. I like the sound of that. It has a certain heft, doesn't it?

Here's the brackets -- a complete list of the contestants and judges and how the books advance.
I'm on for Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson and Washington at Valley Forge by Russell Freedman. My winner goes toe to toe with Meg Rosoff's pick between Here Lies Arthur and Tender Morsels. And the final arbitrator of the whole show is Lois Lowry. Ahem... make that Judge Lowry.

Good news on another book front: National Endowment for the Humanities’ We the People Bookshelf grant program has awarded 4,000 libraries across the United States free hardcover editions of 22 classic books. This year's theme: Picturing America.

Check out the books for grades 9 to 12:

• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
  
• Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange by Elizabeth Partridge
  
• Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
  
• Viajes Con Charley - En Busca de America by John Steinbeck (translated by Jose Manuel Alvarez Florez)
  
• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Pretty impressive company I'm keeping! Steinbeck, Tocqueville and Partridge? I know this is really an award for Dorothea Lange and her incredible photography. Still, I'm happy to bask in her glow!

And because I love great images, check out this one below by Julie Paschkis from the front page of the We the People website. Beautiful! And I love image within image within image. Always magical.

Big Cat Pepper, wonderful reviews, and my beloved cat Coyote

The package hit the front porch with a thud. Penny barked. And here it was: Big Cat Pepper, the real book. Warm apricot-yellow endpapers, beautiful, heart-warming illustrations by Lauren Castillo, so gorgeous on their final paper, soft and creamy and inviting, desolation of olive green nights lightening to spring-green grass under a lemon-yellow sunrise.

Two great reviews have already come in. One from Kirkus: "...Castillo’s mixed-media illustrations of a rural, single-parent family are smudgily warm and comforting. The entirely secular explanation of death and the fact that there is no substitution pet added to the family in the end make this a very worthwhile addition to bibliotheraputic literature for the young."

I love "...smudgily warm..." Yum!

And from Booklist: "Because of their loyalty and innocence, the death of a pet is especially poignant, and Partridge gets it just right with this tale of a boy and his beloved cat, Pepper...."

The next day, our beloved cat Coyote died. As a hungry barn kitten, she'd somehow pulled her trapped leg out of the metal teeth of a coyote trap set by a sheep farmer. She arrived at my sister's house in the country, one back leg partly degloved of skin and fur. We nurtured her back to a healthy, sweet cat and had her for 17 years.


Tom dug her a grave in the backyard by the fence, right near her favorite mousing grounds (still a barn cat at heart, she was a great mouser). We covered her with dirt and sprinkled on rose petals, carefully watched by Penny.

Penny put her head deep in the grave, sniffed and sniffed, then settled back and pushed crumbling dirt into the grave with her nose, over and over again. I've never seen her bury anything -- no bone, no treasure, nothing.

Sleep well, Coyote.