As so many significant events in my life, it happened at the library. It all started with a stack of bookmarks printed with a list of middle grade books. My oldest daughter had just finished second grade, and had already cloistered herself in the world of high fantasy. The books on this list were varied in genre with a diverse cast of main characters and a disproportionate number of Newbery medals gracing their covers. The bookmarks were labeled “Global Reading Challenge,” so I challenged my daughter to read all ten before the summer was over. Read More
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Global Reading Challenge
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Ambassador Kate DiCamillo at Seattle Public Library
Kate DiCamillo has a Southern accent. I did not expect this because I do not hear it in the lyrical rhythms of her wide-eyed fiction. Both the accent and the wonder are explained by her childhood in Florida, where she experienced a number of unusual theme parks, and was particularly impressed by the vision of hidden worlds granted by glass-bottomed boats. It was on one of these boats that she heard a lady in a plastic rainbonnet say
Oh my. This world.
And knew exactly what she meant. Read More
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Enter the Monkey King
I’m the queen of the #momfail, which makes me especially proud of this Monkey King costume I made my daughter for Halloween a few years ago.
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Doe Bay Tradition
After I posted on social media about Doe Bay Fest in August, my dad sent me this picture.
The couple in the photograph is Lewis and Eunice Latham from Ajo, Arizona. Eunice was the sister of my great-grandmother. My father’s middle name is a tribute to Lewis Latham. Read More
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A Weekend in the Hoh
Last year I had an attitude adjustment. As a traveler, I have always felt that a trip didn’t count unless it involved a lengthy flight and resulted in at least one new passport stamp.
At last straightened financial circumstances and complex family logistics have combined with the belated realization that people from all over the world dream of traveling (via long flights requiring passport stamps) to see the natural environment in which I live.