No cowboys in white linen on the streets of Laredo

But there is an absolutely amazing librarian in Laredo Texas: Carmen Escamilla of J.B. Alexander High School. She put together a dream program for the fall, and invited teachers in the district to join her. Students read Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains, about a slave girl during the Revolutionary War, and then read my book, Marching for Freedom, kids' part in the success of the civil rights march for the vote in 1965.

The students in Laredo face serious challenges every day. Most of the students in Mrs. Escamilla's district are on reduced or free lunches. Some kids live in stables or with their families under trees. Gang activity from Mexico is leaping across the Rio Grand River. But Mrs. Escamilla is not going to let any kid drop out, fail, or fall behind if she can help it.
Carmen Escamilla

From fifth graders through high schoolers, students in Laredo read the books, joined mixed-grade online discussion groups, made Vokis and Ven Diagrams. One group of readers made t-shirts and posters, and organized a literacy march. Two ninth graders, Troy Lomas and Eric Garay, wrote and recorded an incredible, complex song, "Keep on Reading."

Here's an excerpt:

"Last name Partridge
Fist name Lizzie,
Like a serious story she ain't nuttin to play with,
Started off local, but thanks to all those lovers,
She is signing autographs on those front book covers,
She keeps on encouraging kids to read, So Cool
She just wants everybody to be free, So true
Marching for the freedom come and join us, People

She can't do it all so get involved, niños
Drop the segregation we are all internally equal..."

© Troy Lomas and Eric Garay

Last Monday I spoke to 700 of these Laredo students and listened as the students shared their excitement about reading the books.One of the speakers had me from the first couple of lines of his speech.

"Hello, my name is Miguel Malacara and I am not a reader. I don't read much but I do have an outlook on life and a bit of passion for history. This is why this book got my attention." Incredible.

Miguel Malacara and his classmate.

She spoke about how she was born in the United States but grew up in Mexico, and had recently returned to the US. She was so discouraged by all the negative press about Hispanics that she had been just waiting to go back to Mexico. She went on to say: "Marching for Freedom changed my destiny. I used to want to go back to Mexico because I heard so many bad things about Hispanics. Now, I will stay and fight." (I'm so sorry I forgot your name!) later: Itzamara De La Garza, above with Miguel! Thank you Itzamara for your wonderful heart!

I absolutely love how Marching for Freedom jumped cultures from African American to Hispanic. As Miguel said after reading about the students in Marching: "If we had just a bit of their determination and confidence we could literally accomplish anything we want."

I have a feeling you do have more than just a bit of their determination and confidence.

Thank you Mrs. Escamilla, thank you teachers, and thank you students. I am honored to have been with you. You are truly an inspiration.

There's a nice shout-out in Publisher's Weekly (scroll down a bit).
And an article in the Laredo Sun.

John Lennon

Tonight on public television at 9 pm:

LennonNYC.

I am eager to see this film from American Masters. Several years ago I did a biography, John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth. I was amazed by Lennon. He was incredibly smart, well-read, and political. He had no tolerance for BS. His NYC time was an interesting part of his life. He was no longer a Beatle, and had to find out who he really was. New Yorkers generally treated him really well, saying hello when they saw him in a cafe, but not bothering him. The kind of anonymity you can only have in a big city.

There were two great resources for doing a bio. on him: lots and lots and lots of photos. I managed to get just over 100 into the book! And Lennon liked to find someone in the press he clicked with, and then he would sit down for extensive interviews with the reporter. It is almost like he used the interview as a way of exploring his own thoughts and feelings.

I'm sure I'll learn new things about him in this film. And mourn, all over again, his shocking murder.

National Council for the Social Studies

I had a fantastic time at NCSS in Denver. Was it cold? Yes, it was very, very cold. Check out how this marsupial daddy kept his baby warm.


It was my first time to be with a big group of social studies teachers. What totally dedicated people! Hard, hard working. I did a presentation on using Marching for Freedom in the classroom, focusing on how to use Google Lit Trips. My presentation went well, though I had some tech difficulties. The teachers were incredibly patient about it. I realized they've all been there before, struggling with computer problems. I'm sure they were kinder to me than a room full of teenagers!


Penguin sponsored me for a signing with free books, and I had a wonderful group of teachers who wanted Marching for Freedom to use in their classrooms. Thank you Uncle Penguin!

I went to as many lectures as I could possible fit in. There were great talks about using technology in the classroom and how to use trade books in the classroom. I also had dinner with the unquenchable Marc Aronson, and another with writer Ann Bausum, our first time meeting each other, though we both do nonfiction.

Also just received news that Marching was chosen for Texas Library Association's TAYSHAS list. An amazing list of books. I'm honored to be included.

And of course, I had to take a picture of this great big whimsical guest:

I was imagining that he wanted in, not to munch up social studies teachers, but wanting to be at a book signing for his latest book Big Blue Bear in the City.

Arc of the moral universe

Finally, finally, finally.

Forty-five years ago, Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed by State Trooper James Fowler during a night protest in Marion, Alabama, near Selma. His death led to the march from Selma to Montgomery, which resulted in President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act.

Fowler has just plead guilty and been given a six month sentence. Short? Very, very short. But Fowler had previously maintained that Jackson was not murdered, but that he, Fowler, shot him in self-defense.

As Dr. King said in his famous speech in Montgomery about waiting for justice, "How long? Not long, because 'No lie can live forever.'.... How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

Here's the New York Times piece.

Check out the archived New Yorker online article, Letter from Selma, by reporter Renata Adler who was on the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. It will give you a vivid feeling of being on the march. Several times during the five day march, Adler spoke with a young marcher, Charles Mauldin, whom I was lucky enough to interview two years ago for Marching for Freedom.

I'd love to hear thoughts on how to ask the right questions to get students to talk about what this means. I can think of a couple of obvious ones: Why do you think Fowler plead guilty? Do you think a jury would be more likely to convict him of murder today than in 1965? What has changed since 1965 that Fowler would now be more likely to be held accountable for his actions?

Any other ideas?

Two challenges in two days

I don't remember ever being told that recording in a sound studio or leading an online social studies lesson were part of being an author. Turns out they are, for me.

Tuesday I went to Fantasy Records and recorded my author's note to Marching for Freedom for Brilliance Audio. I live about a mile away from Fantasy, but hadn't been there in years (I used to hang around with indie filmmakers who worked there) and it's had quite the makeover.

The sound engineer, Alberto Hernandez, was a sweetheart and put me at ease. And to record, he had me stand with muffling barriers around me. The rest of the room is pretty dark, so it's very cozy, actually. I ended up having a great time.

This morning I did a presentation for Pearson: "Integrating Literature and Educational Technology"on how to use the Google Lit Trip for Marching which Jerome Burg and I put together. Pearson has recorded it (thank you, thank you!) and I'll put a link on my website in a couple days when it's up.

And now, I'm off to a very quiet writer's retreat where we don't talk much at all, but sit at our keyboards writing, writing, writing. Which is, after all, what it's all about. A couple times a day we tear ourselves away to eat delicious food we take turns preparing, and in the evening we hold critique sessions. Bliss.

Jane Addams Children's Book Awards and birthday in NYC

I'm just back from the Jane Addams Children's Book Award Ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for books that promote peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races. This was an especially celebratory year, as it was also the 150th anniversary of her birth.

I was incredibly honored that Marching for Freedom was the winner for older children. The awardees all came to the presentation, except Phillip Hoose, who had a previous commitment. He sent his publisher, Simon Boughton, to stand in for him. The speeches were all incredible. I was brought to tears by Andrea Davis Pinkney, who came up to the podium and ... sang. I don't even remember what the song was, just that it was so incredibly beautiful to hear her. It was as if everyone in the room stopped breathing, for just a few stanzas. Then she rolled right into a moving speech.

Here are the amazing women who served as the awards committee:


And the Jane Addams Literature Circle for Girls who read all the honored books and talk about the themes of social justice around the world. Amazing girls, amazing facilitators.



Linda Belle, exec. director, closed out the ceremony with: "Become a dangerous woman!" Love that.

And a new experience for me. My hotel was right across from the United Nations. so before I could enter the building, my suitcase was carefully checked out by a bomb sniffing dog.



He looks relaxed here, but he swings into nose-sniffing gear with a quick command.

Teen Crawl in San Francisco

Kevin Wright and jasmine Williams break out their journals.

We just had this incredible Lit Crawl here in the SF Bay Area. On Friday I was the MC for a panel of young published authors at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Library. We kicked off the Teen Crawl. These eight young adults -- 13 to 20 -- were just amazing. Listening to them was like having electricity running through me. Waiting in the green room for our panel to begin was wonderful. Gradually journals and books of poetry started coming out of backpacks. While we waited to go on, we talked and relaxed and Kevin Wright and Brian Hibbeler read and recited Langston Hughes poems.

Laura Jue's journal.

These young adults were an inspiration -- brilliant at both writing and performing. They are passionate, smart, confident and poised. I'm awed. They are involved with WritersCorps, CalSlam, Youth Speaks, 826 Valencia, and Capital City Young Writers.

Here are a few more photos:


Elena Dreisback and Ela Banerjee

Brian Hibbeler

Gabriel Cortez and Laura Jue.


Everybody: Gabriel Cortez, Kevin Wright, Jasmine Williams, Laura Jue, Indiana Pehlivanova, Brian Hibbeler, Ela Banerjee, me, Elena Dreisbach.

Boston Globe--Horn Book Awards and Simmons College

I'm just back from the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. An amazingly festive, celebratory evening. Here are Martha Parravano and Roger Sutton from HB doing last minute prep, in the "green room" aka classroom at Simmons College where the event was held.



My wonderful Viking people took the train up to Boston. That's Catherine Frank, my editor, on the left, RasShahn Johnson-Baker, Manager of Library Marketing, and Regina Hayes, publisher.



Still in the green room. That's Wendy Lamb, editor of Rebecca Stead's incredible novel, When You Reach Me, my awesome agent Ken Wright, and Catherine. We are all pretty excited.



Speech over, happy, happy, happy. That's the beautiful inscribed silver bowl they gave me. Very Boston. I don't think I have proper Bostonian silver bowl showing etiquette down yet. Probably supposed to be more demure.



With the three Martha's. Then off to a celebratory dinner with the Penguin people et all. My thanks to everyone for an unforgetable evening.

Here are several terrific posts on the evening:

School Library Journal and Read Roger at Horn Book.

The next day was the Simmons College Colloquium where I did a presentation of the Google Lit Trip I've done with Jerome Burg on Marching for Freedom. I didn't manage to take any pictures!



Very end of the day at Simmons. This doesn't look like I am happy, happy, happy again, but I am. That's Peter Sis signing a copy of The Dreamer for me, while I sign a copy of Marching for Freedom for him. An amazing moment.



And a delicious dinner with other Boston Globe-Horn Book winners and friends. Thank you Roger Sutton!

Katherine Tillotson and excitment around my house

My dear illustrator friend Katherine Tillotson just finished a flurry of work and complained her studio was a mess. I begged for a photo to share. I love artists' studios, writer's cubby holes, love knowing the story behind some lyrics I love.

So here's K's beautiful studio:


And a surprise package arrived at my door full of:


Advance Reader Copies for my upcoming novel, Dogtag Summer. It's an indescribable feeling. I slid my hands over them, and flipped through the pages, sniffing them. (What is it about sniffing books? Something about the fresh ink and paper. Makes it all seem so tangible somehow ). I even made my own beautiful display on the dining room table. The feeling of wonder -- A book! A real book! -- never diminishes.

And! right now, in a sound studio, Alan Bomar Jones has a set of headphones on and is sitting in front of a microphone recording Marching for Freedom for Brilliance Audio.

Life is good. Very, very, very good.

SCBWI summer conference

Days of learning, hanging out, talking, speaking. Old friends and new. This year SCBWI had a nonfiction strand, and I was on a panel with Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Tanya Lee Stone and Deborah Heiligman, chaired by Ken Wright from Writer's House. I also did two sessions: Writing Biographies, and Photo Research. I loved doing these two sessions! People came loaded with really good, specific questions, and wanted lots of practical advice. For more about the conference, check out the SCBWI blog that they kept running during the conference. Amazing.

As always, people are my favorite part. Here's a few photos. Dinner with M. T. Anderson one night. There must be some connection here to Feed....

The amazing and wonderful Linda Sue Park. If I ever write a novel half as beautiful as what she does, I will die happy.

Loren Long (left side) was one of the incredible speakers at the conference. At a Writer's House party Sunday night, David Shannon popped up out of nowhere, like an oversized elf with his mischievous grin. I didn't get my camera going till the grin was temporarily gone, and then a security guy swooped in and told me to stop taking photos.


And here is where we had the party, right across the street from the hotel. In fact, I took this photo right out my window the next morning. I think this building is so totally, utterly L. A. Inside were massive amounts of marble and floor to ceiling windows.



Been trying to get a good shot of Nikki Grimes and her beautiful jewelry. Aced it. Thanks, Nikki for a perfect moment!


And even in the middle of all the fun, an agent's work must go on. Ken Wright, checking in. I missed getting a shot of his quintessential L. A. moment: working by the pool, he emailed me news of a new contract. Then he fell asleep in the sun while I danced in my room.

Traveling writer: on the road again.

I'm just back from an amazing trip with two back-to-back talks.

First I went to talk to writers at Hamline University MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. The caliber of the students is incredible at this program. Lots of students have a book or two out, or are well on their way. I was able to hang with my editor, Jill Davis, who is there learning about being on the other side of the desk as a writer. Also lunch with Pete Hautman was terrific. We had a chance to catch up after not seeing each other since we both served on the National Book Award Committee a few years ago.

The professors at Hamline are incredible and give powerful, loaded lectures. If you are thinking about joining this program be prepared: they work their students (and profs) hard! Here I am with Gary Schmidt.



I gave a lecture on "How to Write Kick-Ass Nonfiction." Jacqueline Briggs Martin who teaches there did a really nice run-down of my talk on her blog. And yes, I did get all the way from kick-ass non-fiction to primordial energy. Made sense at the time.

Extra bonus: seeing my son Will in his lab and going for dinner afterward. He just got his Ph.D in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Minnesota.



Then on to Brigham Young University's Symposium on Books for Young Readers. I had a blast. The morning view from my hotel window! No wonder so many artists and photographers and climbers come here.


My minder, Annette Garner, who was fantastic. More mountains.



Our last evening together... below is a picture I took of a few of us (Laurie Halse Anderson, Patty MacLachlan, Glenna and Mike Tunnell, David Shannon) as close to paradise as you can get: Robert Redford's Resort.We drove up together in a van. I had no idea that Patricia MacLachlan is so funny. With David Shannon ripping it up alongside her, I just stared out at the spectacular scenery and laughed. The two of them traded White House storied that went like this: Patty: "George Bush asked me if I would like to sit down and I said, 'no, because I have a run in my stockings on my butt and if I sit down it will go all the way down.'" And David told us how he actually got Barbara to sign his Barbara Bush bobble head doll. (He had a little rogue help from the former Ambassador of Children's Literature, Jon S.)


DaNae Leu did a terrific run-down of the two days on her blog, The Librariest. She even brought me her Battle of the Books T-shirt to sign and took this modest photo of me:



And I thought this sign was so hysterical. It's for the last person in line at the bookstore signing....

Braiding the garlic

Here's the big mound of garlic plants we brought in from the garden. First we cleaned them all... getting dirt out of the roots, cutting off excess roots, stripping off the dead leaves. Then on to the braiding....
I've always loved people's hands. Writing, hammering, cooking, wrapped around a small child... just love watching people use their hands. Both Dorothea Lange and my dad photographed people's hands, so I guess I learned early to notice them. Felix started off the braids by picking three garlic plants and tying them together, then he would add new garlics as Sasha braided. He held tight to the heads so they would make a firm braid.

Flipped over to tie off.... and success! Now on to the next couple dozen. Sasha and Felix stayed up long after I'd gone to bed, braiding and tying.

Malcolm Gladwell, weekends in the apple orchard

I just watched an incredible interview with Malcolm Gladwell at the Guardian, UK. He's someone I admire tremendously for his ability to stand back and analyze the way things work. [The Tipping Point, and Outliers are two of his books.] He ends his interview talking about journalism and journalists: "The human need to be told stories is universal. We're like people growing food. What we do, there is always going to be this fantastic market for it."

Watch the interview with Gladwell by Sarfraz Manzoor here.

We've spent the last few weekends working in our garden/orchard. We put beet seeds in for a second time (it was too cold this spring for them to germinate), harvested fava beans, and dug up half the garlic, cleaned it up, and Sasha and Felix made garlic braids. Takes teamwork. We got the orchard mowed (again, all that rain made for lush grass and weeds) and thinned off many of the tiny apples on our young and tender trees so they will keep growing and not stop to put all their energy into fruit. Tom wheeling some of the garlic up to the house. Picking fava beans in my favorite new T-shirt. My dad getting the low hanging beans, with a little help from our dog.
Taking a break. And yes, my dad really does dress like this. Those are his old sixties ties he uses for suspenders.

My latest manuscript has been edited, re-edited, copy-edited and rewritten every one of those times by me. I love this stage of a book. It's this consuming sprint to the finish, lungs bursting, as every little bit is done just-one-more-time.

I'm also totally wrung out. I just can't seem to get my mind to think one more thought. I'd rather be outside watering, or watching the bees fly from flower to flower. When I'm inside, I do crazy tasks like clean out the pantry. Do the wash. Fold. Put away. Wash the dog. Sit on the back porch with the dog to both dry off. I've been wondering lately why I don't have a lounge chair in the back yard like other poeple do, so I could just lie down and do nothing. Read maybe, that would be the max.

Garlic braiding pictures tk.

Eggs and Awards

Two amazing things happened to me this morning:

1. Hen laid an egg right in my hand. (Yes, this requires patience. Lots.)

2. The Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were announced. Marching for Freedom won for nonfiction.

Unlike waiting for an egg, which is a very solitary occupation (believe me, Hen wishes it were a little more solitary), winning an award like this is because many, many people worked incredibly hard to pull this book together. I thank the people whom I interviewed for their heartfelt stories, the photographers who took the photos, and all the people at Viking Children's Books.

Children's Literature New England: Secrets Told and Untold

It was a couple weeks ago, but I still have my hand-scrawled notes from the CLNE colloquy sitting right on my desk. I gave a talk on non-fiction, and helped roast our wonderful new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Katherine Patterson. My part was easy -- I did a riff off the outgoing Ambassador's recent open letter in the Hornbook to the new Ambassador. The roast was fun, and she was a very good sport about it. Here's a great interview with Patterson by Roger Sutton from several years ago.

Here's Peter Sis at dinner one night: not exactly shy. And I love a guy who'll wear checks. And a striped hoodie.

All the speakers at CLNE were terrific. But my notes are still humming and vibrating next to me because I want to share how amazing Ashley Bryan's presentation was. It was in the evening, and all the lights were turned down low, except at the podium. He recited, by heart, a group of poems. He'd put on his glasses, check the title of the next poem, whisk off his glasses, and sing/shout/whisper a poem. We heard the voices of wise old grannies, gleeful children and sad, gravelly-voiced old men. Ashlely's whole body was part of the poem as he reached and spun and swayed. Sometimes he'd ask us for "help" and draw us into being part of the poem as we recited refrains with him. He did more than forty poems, and what I remember is is love of the poetry, and his pleasure in making the poems fill the room and sweep us into their magic.

As we wrapped up the colloquy, Ashley put his love of poetry so eloquently: "When I read a poem," he said, "I am living it all again. The poems will make it of the moment again."

More photos from CLNE on facebook.com/elizabethpartridge