Beautiful Toni Morrison quote

Toni Morrison grew up in a family where reading was considered sacred, with enormous power attached to it.

"If you can read, they can't cheat you; if you can't read, they can defeat you."

At the launch of the Free Speech Leadership Council in NYC last week, with thanks to Shelf Awareness.

And while I'm on quotes, here's another that has been sticking in my head for months: Last winter I spoke on an NCTE panel with Marc Aronson, Tanya Stone and Tanya Bolden, chaired by Teri Lesesne. Tanya Bolden said if she'd been able to read about African Americans in books when she was a kid, she would have been "shed of shame" earlier.

What a perfect phrase.

Jon Muth, The Stonecutter

Here's a wonderful video. Take a couple minutes to watch this, and you'll feel like you've been sitting quietly, taking a few slow, deep breaths and letting the busyness of the world slip away. I love the simplicity of how the video has been shot in black and white, like an old movie. Thanks to artist Katherine Tillotson for the link.

Author promo ideas from Flying Pig, Kids Otter Read

Elizabeth Blume who is an awesome, wonderful person and a bookseller as well (co-owner of Flying Pig Bookstore) blogs regularly on School Library Journal. She's just written a long post on how publishers can use their PR money effectively for book store promotion. Thank you Elizabeth! It's clear she gave a lot of thought to her post. There are some great ideas for authors as well. For example: What makes a good postcard or bookmark, or how much a personalized note means from an author. With PR budgets shrinking dramatically, we authors have to roll up our sleeves and help in any way we can.

Check out her To Market To Market post.

Saturday is Kids Otter Read day -- more than 50 authors in the SF bay area are doing great events at book stores. Drop by a store near you! I'll be at Laurel Bookstore in Oakland, run by another terrific woman who owns a book store, Luan Stauss. I'll be with Christina Meldrum, Lea Lyon and Debra Sartell. Hope to see you there!

I love my life, especially the orchard, especially right now

This is what I was doing instead of writing: playing hooky in the orchard. It's almost physically impossible to stay at my desk in this weather. I swear there is some way the sap rises in us, telling us to get outside and get the garden going, and go through the house and do a spring cleaning. The nest needs to be tidied up after the long winder indoors, and the garden tended so there'll be a harvest in the fall.

Here's a shot of Tom fertilizing the garlic, planted last fall. He dug a loooong trench for water pipes, got the pipes in, and the dirt back over them, all in two days. I weeded, fertilized and tended the grapes, and we set up a couple over-ground water systems on some apple trees we planted by the barn.

Felix and Sasha came by for dinner bringing salad, with spicy nasturtium blossoms and fat, homegrown carrots. What colors.

California Historical Society and my chicken-y weekend

Got up early, early Sunday morning to take my dad over to Channel 4 to be on the morning news with Henry Tannenbaum. Henry has all kinds of interesting people on his show that he spotlights for 4 or 5 minutes who are doing art and culture things in the bay area. As you can see, Henry and Ron had a great time talking with each other. Wondering what that is on my dad's head? He fashioned homemade leather straps for all his glasses, so when he isn't wearing them on his face, he can push them up on top of his head. And all that hair? It's a beautiful soft golden red. And at 91 years old, as he says, if you've got it, flaunt it. He cuts it himself, btw, in the bathroom mirror with a pair of huge old steel scissors.

Ron has several photos up in a show at the California Historical Society, Hobos to Street People: Artists' Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present, runs through August 15. There's a panel this Thursday he'll be participating in from 6-8 pm: Photographers Documenting Homelessness from the New Deal to Today with Philip Adam, and Robert Terrell, moderated by Melanie Light. Come by if you can! It's going to be a really interesting evening.

The chicks are growing. They aren't just little fuzz balls anymore. They're getting real feathers. They are pretty mellow birds, luckily. i carry them around as much as possible on the theory that if they get used to human hands and smells, they'll be tamer adult chickens.

Tom and our son Felix spent a day working on the deluxe chicken palace. I'll post pictures soon. It even has a glass skylight! It is going up right next to the two huge greenhouses Felix and Sasha built. The chickens are going to live at Felix and Sasha's -- which is also my parents. My parents live in a huge old Berkeley house, with one of my sisters and her husband, and Felix and Sasha, who have a whole floor to themselves. And an enormous garden, surrounded by oak and redwood trees, where the chickens will be able to go out every day and scratch around.

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.