Christopher Paul Curtis is my hero.

Let me begin by saying I adore Richard Peck, almost as much as I adore Christopher Paul Curtis. But Marching for Freedom just beat out Peck's latest book, A Season of Gifts, in today's round of the Battle of the Books. I have to admit.... (sorry Mr. Peck) I'm thrilled!

In case you haven't been following the Battle, we're in Round Two. In Round One, Marching beat out Marcelo in the Real World. I love reading the judge's posts every day -- they are quirky and apologetic (after all, it is authors in the kid's world judging their peers) and give me new ways to look at some of the latest, most interesting, and oft-buzzed books of the last year.

I also raise my boxing-gloved fist in victory each time for non-fiction. We don't often make it this far! Deborah Heiligman and I are hoping we get put up against each other so we can take pictures of ourselves in the ring, ready to duke it out.... but first her book, Charles and Emma, has to win another round, and so does Marching.

Scroll through the posts following the judge's ruling for some interesting comments. What did you think of the honest post by Your Neighborhood Librarian?

"I spend some time scratching my head about how to get great nonfiction like Marching to Freedom into the hands of kids I know will enjoy it. Looking at these two books side by side it occurs to me that maybe format plays a part. Grownup trade nonfiction is published in the same format as novels – Glass Castle slots in next to Kite Runner and people tend to forget which book they’re reading ‘for fun’ and which is the nonfiction.

Maybe the wider flatter shape of books like Marching for Freedom and Truce and everything by Russell Freedman is what signals to kids ‘this is a book for school/work’. I don’t know. All I know is that Season of Gifts will be read til it falls apart on my shelves, and circ on Marching to Freedom will be a fraction of that, and I’ll still be scratching my head."

Dr. King's arc of the moral universe: 45th anniversary

Forty-five years ago today, 30,000 marchers poured into Montgomery, Alabama to demonstrate for voting rights. John Lewis, then Chairman of SNCC, now a Congressman from Georgia, was granted time on the podium that afternoon, and Martin Luther King Jr. gave his powerful “How Long, Not Long” speech.

March 25th wasn’t the protestors’ first attempt to reach the state capitol. Two weeks earlier, Lewis had been at the head of a line of solemn marchers who’d walked anxiously out of Selma. In what became known as Bloody Sunday, the marchers were stopped at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge by mounted deputies and state troopers. Acting under the orders from Governor George Wallace, they attacked the marchers with tear gas, clubs and cattle prods.

Lining the sides of the road were whites who’d come out to watch for sport, their taunts and threats caught by network news. What they said was ugly, and generously spiked with the N-word.

One of the first protestors clubbed down was Lewis. Scores of others were injured as well, among them fourteen year old Lynda (Blackmon) Lowery. Determined to show Governor Wallace he couldn’t stop her, she marched again two weeks later, the black threads of her stitches dangling on her forehead.

Along the route, hostile whites came to watch and jeer. Overhead, a small government surveillance plane circled, scanning the nearby woods for hidden sharpshooters. “I was not brave,” Lowery said. “I was not courageous. I was determined. That’s how I got to Montgomery.”

Just last Saturday, Representative Lewis along with several other members of Congress had racist Americans slinging the N word at him again. It went further than the congressional halls as Tweets urging the assassination of the president went out on two Twitter sites.

Forty-five years on, and we’ve got hate talk, hate Tweets. Hate radio’s been popping with an “us against them” mentality since the House passed the Health Bill on Sunday. The racism, implied and overt, is both frightening and depressing. We’re all going to need fourteen year old Lowery’s determination. That arc of the moral universe Dr. King was counting on has still got a long ways to go as it bends towards justice.

Izumi Shikibu poem spreads the old-fashioned way

Many years ago I ran across this poem -- I don't even remember where. I was so taken with it, I copied it onto a scrap of paper and taped it to the wall where I could see it from my desk.

A few years ago Jenna Ross (reporter for the Star Tribune and friend of our son Will) stayed at our house. Taken with the quote, she jotted it down. Just recently she was taking a printmaking class and made this gorgeous print:


I love this way a poem from a thousand years ago found its way into her hands and heart.

Bookshop Santa Cruz and the Gateway School Freedom Singers

Usually as I get ready to speak, I look out and see people expectantly waiting, like this:

But this time, Bookshop Santa Cruz and I did something a little different.

Because I love the Freedom Songs that fueled the civil rights march, I asked if we could have a group of kids come and sing at my presentation. In addition to Bookshop Santa Cruz making Marching for Freedom their community book of the month, they arranged for the enthusiastic participation of the second and fifth graders from Gateway School. The kids were amazing!

Not only did they sing three Freedom Songs, but they sang This Land is Your Land. As a special surprise for me, they even included a song they had written. (I suspect it was their incredible music teacher who actually wrote it, seen in the video below playing ukulele as she directs them.)

So music from the streets of Selma, accompanied by hand clapping and feet marching, made its way to Bookshop Santa Cruz, accompanied by the ukulele, originally from Hawaii. Not to be too over-the-top patriotic, but I love so many things about our interesting, constantly-evolving beautiful country. And bright, earnest kids are the best of all. Here they are, singing.