wonder-full

There’s something magical about watching a child read—especially if s/he happens to be reading a book that you wrote! I saw this mural on Facebook last week; I believe it’s by French artist Jef Aérosol. Somehow this image captures my feelings about my Berkeley trip. I don’t spend a lot of time with kids aside from my school visits, so it was nice to hang out with Laura and her seven-year-old daughter. Cassy made pancakes for us on Saturday morning but first she reached for The Boy in the Bubble and impressed me with her reading skills. The next day we had the brunch and I got to meet Equal Read CEO Taun Wright and her daughter Ella. Taun asked if I was selling books because her daughter was sitting on the couch, already absorbed in The Boy in the Bubble. On Monday I had a chance to present before a combined group of first and fourth graders; during my slideshow I asked the kids to predict what would happen to the boy once his bubble broke and then withheld the answer: “You’ll have to read the book and find out!” A fourth grade girl saw the copy I had donated to the class on a nearby easel and quietly reached up to pull it into her lap. She opened the book and read it while I talked about my other titles. Afterward we met Janine Macbeth for tea in downtown Berkeley and she said her six-year-old son was already several pages into The Boy in the Bubble, which she had just shown him the day before. I’m not a perfect writer and I learned a lot this past weekend about other ways to self-publish (check out Robert Trujillo‘s Kickstarter campaign for Furqan’s First Flat Top). But there’s something to be said for quickly and quietly creating a book that immediately draws kids in. I’m heading to Toronto tomorrow and unfortunately I’m out of books for the moment. I have one order to deliver to a middle school principal and one set of books for my cousin who has three kids. I don’t have a lot of energy either but hope a day of rest will help me to recover from this bad cold. Time for tea…