"Is this publishable?"

   





People often ask if their mss. are "publishable." I used to think that was a question editors, agents, and even other authors could answer accurately -- about a finished ms. or even an idea.

But the more time I've spent in publishing, the more strongly I believe that the only person who can REALLY answer that question is an editor in a position to offer you a contract. And even she can only say (in effect, the answer is rarely this blunt):

"Yes, we'll publish this"
or
"Maybe, if you....."
or
"No, we won't."

If she doesn't say yes, the reasons she gives or the editorial suggestions she makes may or may not apply to other publishers.

I think, too, that it's tempting to interpret what is essentially a polite rejection as "maybe," or to take comments made without much thought, commitment or hope of seeing your ms. again too seriously.....  For how to interpret letters that don't say yes (sometimes they really do mean "maybe" and say why!), see Alvina's wonderful post, Decline Letters 101.)

Writing a novel takes a long time and huge amount of work; it would be nice if there were a way to tell before it's finished if anyone will ever publish it. But  the only way to find out is to finish it (really finish it -- a first draft may not even hint at the final version!), send it out, and see what happens.

value & hype

Recently, the pursuit of filthy lucre has been on my mind.

Perhaps it's because of my decision to have an original art trunk sale.  Even though I am starting to feel stressed as I watch my expenses rise as my income (due to limited work time) lowers, I also feel guilty and confused about how to price my art.  People are weird about art--what is expensive to one person is a bargain to another. What I consider deeply discounted, others might think is still too much. And, if I discount the art too much will it devalue it? In art school, I remember vividly teachers telling students never to sell their art or skill cheaply. "If you don't value your own art, how do you expect others to?" they said.

But, what I want most is that the art ends up with people who love it, regardless of how much they paid. In a way, I'd almost rather just give it away--especially after I watched this Ted Talk by Amanda Palmer:



But I'm not sure how it would work. So, I guess right now, unless something better comes to mind,  I'll stick with the trunk sale and just try to muddle through (by the way, there's still time to sign up to be on the trunk sale list; I'm aiming for the first batch of art to go on sale the first week in April).

And related to my path of money-grubbing thoughts, I also read this interview of Neal Pollack which contained this  quote:

I spent a lot of years trying to turn myself into a brand because they told us self-branding is a way to success. And I kind of believed the hype. It’s just not true. To this day, I see writers publishing their first book or their second book and I can just see them going overboard with the marketing and getting all hyped up about it. You just have to write. 

 Even though he is an adult author, I thought it was an extremely interesting. The article indicates that the coveted hype around a book  just might not be that valuable after all. Which I found both hopeful and disheartening. Hopeful because I think it just shows that the only real success one can can have being an author is writing something you truly love. But disheartening because that success may never pay the bills. 

Excuses, prize (book or chocolate) and new end date

   



I've asked the other Blue Rose Girls, and the contest now has a prize and lasts longer:

• the prize is the BRGs book of your choice, signed and  of course mailed to you OR  chocolate, dark or milk, also your choice.....if you want to stay anonymous, you can still enter -- if you win, just email us your name, address and prize choice.

• the new end-date is  April 1.

Send us your 50 word story as a comment -- all (or maybe I should say, ANY! -- it's two days and no one has entered anything) entries will then be posted all together so readers can vote. The winner will be announced on the blog.

How long does it take to write 50 words???? When my friend emailed ME about the contest, my first reaction was to start an email explaining why I couldn't....my second was just to write the damn thing.

That took less time than the excuse.

Perhaps I can extrapolate? I can and will -- and even if no one enters the contest, something good will have come out of it for me (if I remember this the next time I am telling myself why I can't write).

a Girl Scout Storyteller

All the way in December, which seems like years ago,  a videographer came to film me for a little movie for the Girl Scouts. When they first requested the filming, I was completely honored however I was also in a bit of a quandary about where to shoot. Should I wait until the studio was set up in the new house? (Good thing I didn't as it's still not set up yet). Would we be able to clean the studio to a degree of decency in the apartment? In the end, Lexan, the understanding videographer filmed me strategically in the living room so that we would only have to straighten up a few shelves.
Here's how the video turned out:



Thank you, Lexan! Thank you, Girl Scouts!

Writing contest imported from Scotland

   



In Scotland every month they have a contest: write a story in fifty words. They always give you a prompt-- this month, it was "Use ‘Hebrides Overture (Fingal's Cave') Op. 26’ by Felix Mendelssohn as your starting point."

I found out about the contest from a friend, after the deadline -- she suggested that we do it and email each other our 50 words, just for fun.

We did -- and it WAS fun. Would you like to join us and post your story in the Comments? I will cut and paste them all into one post next week -- with or without real names, as each author prefers.

My Scottish friend wants to remain anonymous. I will tell whose is whose when I  post all the stories next week....if no one sends any, I'll still say which is mine--or maybe you know me well enough by now to guess?

And for the non-Scots (I am considering myself McLibby these days): these notes may make our stories more comprehensible.  "Island bred" could mean ANY island, but Staffa (where Fingal's Cave is) makes it one of the Hebrides....."turbine" means wind turbine. These provide much of the country's electricity and are a source of bitter controversy (and complaining) on many of the islands. Anyhow, here are our stories.

____________________________________________________________

STORIES IN 50 WORDS

#1

“Leave the iPad behind!” 

 My island-bred kids are sullen.  The speedboat will deprive them of cyber-fun:  “Been to Staffa before… Too cold…. Get seasick….. ”

Slumped, reluctant shoulders are slowly, inadvertently uplifted into sea- spray, wind and sunlight as the boat jolts through glistening waves, then planes – exultant - towards open sea.
______________________________________________________________

# 2

The Hebrides switched off with his computer. Relieved at the excuse to stop writing, Hamish pretended only electricity had been needed to complete a masterpiece.

His wife said nothing to his turbine tirade; he got a beer.

“While it’s still cold,” he added, expecting disapproval --  not the meat ax.
             
             _______________________________

learning school's limitations

The more I travel the more I learn about schools lesson plans, librarians' likes and dislikes, and what schools won't accept.

When I was in Georgia last week I was surprised when the librarian explained that she'd ordered a series of nonfiction books on animals... and pointed to one on seahorses. She explained that the seahorse book was going back to the publisher.

Why?

Because of the page on mating.

It had a very similar photo to the one below:

The text for the book series was VERY simple. I didn't read the one on seahorses because it was put on the "return" cart and sent away. But I read the rest in the series. It was for very young kids, with one sentence per page... so the sentence with the seahorses probably said something like, "And seahorses mate." 

The librarian's assistant told me she couldn't believe that the library couldn't have the book. Moreover, she said that the book couldn't be at the high schools! What? I said, "But don't they have sex education?" She said yes, but that the kids need to bring in permission slips, etc. etc. Then I commented that what is on TV on a daily basis is FAR worse than seahorses leaning into one another. She agreed whole heartedly. 

So for us authors writing nonfiction it becomes a debate: do we risk some school systems not carrying our books or do we play it safe and not include certain subjects?

Authors and their characters

A few weeks ago, while waiting for comments on my book,  I got addicted (not too strong a word) to a Swedish detective series, so addicted that it got in the way of my own writing and life.

When I reached the end of the series, I started the books, which weren't nearly as good -- not only because of the great acting on the show. The tv series was based on story ideas from the author, and it seemed to me that he had lightened up and allowed his hero to have and be things he hadn't given him in the books.

An interview in the Guardian said the author sounded "irritated" when he talked about his main character. The author admitted that he was irritated by him -- that he didn't even like him and his serious, pessimistic ways!

Maybe the actor playing the hero influenced the author's feeling. The second series started with the hero laughing at an outdoor party to celebrate something he'd wanted all his life and now had: a house by the sea. He'd bought a dog he loved--something he'd wanted for years. His colleagues were fond of him and he of them, he found a promising potential partner. Things were going far better for Wallander than they ever had.

So I was shocked and horrified by the hopeless ending of the most recent book, one written AFTER the second series. An even worse Epilogue said this was absolutely the end of the story, that the rest of the detective's life was his business and no one else's.

Maybe the author will relent -- a third Swedish series which I THINK takes place in time after the other two  will air sometime this year. Conan Doyle did after all kill off  Sherlock Holmes -- and then write more stories about him.

Final or not, though, this ending and epilog ended my addiction. I'm back into my own novel (and have stopped berating myself that it's not like this detective series, mine has something it doesn't: HOPE -- was it you, Alvina, have said that was one thing children's books had to have, and one thing that made them different from adult books, which might or might not end on a hopeful note?).

But Mankell did know how to create a character. It seems odd to me for an author not to like being possessed by a character he created. (I've always wished that would happen to me.) But I know some authors don't like it. Agatha Christie found Poirot a burden at times and used to have arguments with him:

"What IS an egg-shaped head, anyway?" she'd say.

Whether the authors like it or not, though, I bet that kind of possession is what creates characters who take on a life of their own, outside the book, in readers' heads and on TV and in movies, even  to people who have never read the books or seen the movies, but know who the characters are. And maybe that's what makes the authors bring them back to life, too, even after they've killed them off: the characters stubbornly refuse to die.

Original Art Trunk Sale

As you know, I'm moving! One of the things I've been thinking about is lightening my flat files. They are just stuffed with art and I can't fit anything else in. It's time to make an art purge!

But what to do? At first I thought I'd just give it all to an archive like the Dodd Center  but it does seem a little sad to think of all of it just sitting in a vault (not that it's doing much more in my flat files). I'd love the art to be seen and enjoyed.

Then, my good friend Janet Wong suggested that I have special online "trunk sale" of my artwork for schools and librarians. I could offer them  the opportunity to purchase my art at a discounted price, it  would be displayed instead of put in a vault AND I it would be financial aid for our move!

The first 12 pieces will go on sale in a couple of weeks and I'm making a special list for it. If you are a teacher or librarian* and would be interested in purchasing my art, please sign up to be on the list HERE. There will be a choice to be on my newsletter list or the trunk sale list---make sure you click "Original Art Trunk Sale"  to be on the list but feel free to sign up for both (I have special giveaways on my newsletters, too).

Please spread the word! If you are a PTO member, please let your teachers and librarian know and have them get on the list! Tell your public librarians. I'd love for my art to be at your library!


*if you are a collector yourself, you are welcome to put yourself on the list, too. 

Waiting

   




Writers spend a lot of time waiting -- at least I do: waiting for comments, waiting for contracts, and (during the first draft) waiting for ideas. For me it's one of the hardest things about writing.

Waiting makes me really uncomfortable -- but I've learned that trying to force answers from myself is no more helpful than trying to force them from other people. When I'm writing, I just have to sit and stare at the blank screen -- or go for a walk or do something mindless. Then, sometimes, the solution comes. Or sometimes I write something I know is bad, hoping that when I sit down again the next day I'll know how to make it better.

Raold Dahl said NEVER to stop when you do'nt know what to do next or you'll never start again! I think he's right--even if the solution doesn't come, I still need to sit there, trying: the next day, too.

What do you do when you're stuck in your writing?

These days, I don't allow waiting to hear from an agent or editor to be an activity (it used to be!) -- I just start something else. But I do sometimes wait for comments. And once I send this novel out, even though I will be starting something else, I don't know if I will wait patiently or passively to hear about IT past a certain point....but I might.

When I sent out my last published novel (a long time ago) I made a vow to just put it out of my mind, and (somewhat amazingly) I was able to do that.  I really felt that I had done all I could and it was out of my hands....maybe that's the secret. Anyhow, when I did hear, it came as a surprise: a good surprise.

What do you do when you're waiting to hear from an editor or agent, and haven't? How long do you wait before saying something?

Editors and agents (if any are reading this)! Does it annoy you if authors email you asking? Can you remember any particularly annoying-- or UNannoying -- questions?

Children's Book Week Bookmark

As I mentioned a couple of time earlier, I am the creator the 2013 Children's Book Week Bookmark. I can't tell even begin to tell you how excited I was when I was offered this opportunity. One of my life long pipe dreams is to be the illustrator of a Children's Book Week poster--this is pretty close!

So, I really wanted to do a good job on this. The Children's Book Week people asked that the bookmark include an activity of some kind-- other artists had made their bookmarks into door hangers, even paper dolls!

I racked my brain for a long time trying to think of something as creative. Paper fortune cookie instructions inspired by Fortune Cookie Fortunes? I didn't think it would work out of context (so many people don't realize that fortune cookies are not Chinese and the subtlety of Chinese-American pride might be lost in the misunderstanding).  Origami inspired by Lissy's Friends? I thought that might be hard to follow. How to write the Chinese character for "Book" or "Read?" Maybe... but then at the dentist's office (had to get an old filling replaced!) I saw a Highlight's Magazine:

and remembered how I always loved their "hidden picture" features:

....and the light went on!

From there, I decided to create the bookmark hiding the letters R, E, A, D, I, N, G in the image. It was a lot of fun! Here's the sketch:

can you see the letters?

Here'e the work in progress:

adding the color in! Trying to make the letters not too obvious, but still not too hard to find. 

And the final painting:

I decided to add a bonus activity to the bookmark (like I said,  I really wanted to do a good job!), so I included instructions on how to draw a Chinese dragon using letters (I thought that kind of went with finding the letters on the dragon bookmark--letters, dragons, reading--it kind of works, right?):

And then the bookmark was done! See what the finished thing looks like and download it FREE at the Children's Book Week website! Hope it makes you excited for Children's Book Week--I know I am!

New sketch

Today I'm having good fun developing developing some new picture book ideas. One involves drawing people, something I haven't done in a long, long time! Here is a sneak peek:

the necessity of a new studio

One of the reasons we are moving is that we've outgrown the condo. What used to be the studio is now overrun with baby things--now I work in the living room.

This has become problematic because at night, when the baby is sleeping, I like to keep/start working and the Sasquatch wants to unwind by watching a movie. He likes to watch in the dark. I like to work in the light. After many nights of a well-exercised light switch, the Sasquatch came up with this solution:

Yes, it's a light for me to attach to my head!

I did try it:

But in the end, the head lamp was a bust (I do use it to sneak in to the room to cut the baby's fingernails, though).  And the light negotiations continue. Can't wait until I get into the new studio!!

living on in stories

I've made an annual visit to a local Wellesley school and it's always lovely (I hope I can continue to visit even after the move!). The students never fail to impress me with their beautiful storyboards of their favorite "small story" from Year of the Dog. This year, I was particularly touched by how many of them chose "Uncle Shin and the Special Cake."

That's because my Uncle Shuin, who is the Uncle Shin in the book (I thought that was the way to spell it when I was  a child which is why I kept it that way in the book) passed away in August. Despite his greediness as a boy, he grew up to be a highly respected surgeon, a loving father and truly compassionate human being. Some might think that his naughty deeds as a child are the best way to remember him, but he also had a pretty good sense of humor. I think he'd be pretty amused to see his childhood mischief in cartoon form.  I know I was.

Thanks so much, Wellesley students!

Writing, weight, will power

   

An article in the NY TIMES once said we only have so much will power.

I hadn't read the article but I guess I believed the idea because I distinctly remember saying to myself: okay, you don't have to do anything else -- use all your willpower to finish this novel. Eat whatever you want: just finish. 

So I ate things I had never allowed myself to eat in my adult life (we're talking mango icecream, pasta etc) and I gained 30 pounds. I did get the novel finished and published, too.

But for OVER TEN YEARS the weight stayed on. Now I have lost 5 pounds, according to the doctor, not just me. Not all of it is from recent efforts -- this is since I last went to the doctor. But still: 5 pounds in the right direction. And I have continued to lose since that visit a few days ago!

The rest of this post is about HOW. I experimented with different methods and have finally found a way to lose weight  that:

a) works for me. When you're over 40 this is really hard! When I was young, I would just not eat for a few days and lose 5...that doesn't work when you're older....though when I added up the actual calorie count of what I USED TO eat in a day, why I wasn't losing weight became all too clear. Yes, it's harder when you're older but at any age those calories added up to too many!

b) I can stick to

What works for me is tracking exercise and calories. I wear a device called a Fitbit that measures how many steps I take in a day, stairs climbed, calories burned. After lunch, I log in what I've eaten -- Fitbit then tells me  how many calories I have left in the day. (Whenever you come near your computer, Fitbit automatically enters how many calories you've burned.)

I experimented with different ways of eating, including:

* vegan lasagna for dinner (so yummy! so healthy sounding! and, alas, when you really add it all up, so high in calories!)

*not eating all day so I could have a nice dinner 

*juice fasts

etc (other idiotic ideas)

What works:

* SMALL breakfast (less than 300 calories) -- usually, quinoa (which I love -- for those of you who don't know it: the Aztec super food! has MUCH more protein than other grains as well as a delicious nutty taste) with a few currants or dried cranberries (when trying to lose weight, QUANTITIES of these kinds of things count -- "a few" = 1 TBSP), and tea with almond milk (only 40 calories)....if I'm not hungry when I wake up, tea only and breakfast later

*lunch (I never want to stop what I'm doing or trying to do for lunch) is always quick: 2 of our local pasture-fed eggs, higher in protein, lower in bad cholesterol than free-range eggs -- either in what I call a fusion omelette  or egg salad on a lot of lettuce

*IF I need a mid-afternoon snack, which usually I do not: spicey lemonade (home-made: maple syrup, red pepper flakes, lots of lemon juice0): perhaps not for everyone but I like it a lot

*dinner is a HIGHLY delicious, high quality protein: really fresh fish (if there is any interest, I will post detailed instructions), lamb, chicken, or beef and green vegetables; salad only if I have the calories left for it. I find that if I have a high quality protein for dinner, I don't eat after dinner....if I must have something sweet, herbal tea with honey.

Alas, for now, anyway: no potatoes, no pasta -- vegan lasagna seemed like such a good idea on paper but always left me feeling hungry and thus eating after dinner. A nutritionist told me once that eating in the night is a sign that you haven't had enoug protein during the day and in my case this seems to be true.

Perhaps it is some kind of atavistic cavewomen wake-up-in-the-night-hungry? Go-out-and-kill-something! response.

It is also really helping:

1. To PAY ATTENTION to what I am eating -- not eat as an adjunct to another activity.

2. Not to have chocolate, nuts, or hard cheese in the house -- only feta, to be crumbled SPARINGLY on salad.

3. To say as a mantra that feeling slightly hungry is a sign that fat is being burned! -- but always eat something before I get really hungry.

4. To never ever eat or drink wine (which I do have with dinner) after dinner....water or herbal tea only!

A nice bath with some lavender in it helps too.

What works for you? Please tell -- the mantra came from a blog reader!

(yes, we've talked about this before, there does seem to be an almost fatal connection between writing and weight)

PS (off topic) Thank you, you in Australia, for what you told us about Frank McCord in your comment on my last post!

Just like Greta

Inspired by A Photo for Greta, this adorable, young reader put on a special outfit, struck a pose, then asked her dad to take her picture. I love it!



I think the resemblance is striking.

Something encouraging

   




Almost by accident I read ANGELA's ASHES--a book I had never wanted to read because it sounded so depressing. But it was there and so was I, and once I started it, I couldn't stop (even though I started reading it after midnight at the end of a busy day).

His family had no money mainly because his father spent what wages he had in pubs, even drinking away all of the £5 his parents sent when a new baby was born. The children didn't have enough to eat. Three died.

Yet they  laughed a lot. They talked well -- and wittily; read voraciously (under the street lamps sometimes); learned a lot in school;  and had a closeness with each other few American siblings I've known ever achieve. They seemed to deal with the hardness of their lives with a cheerful stoicism -- and dreams of going to America, a dream Francis achieved by leaving school at 14, working, and saving his money. He left when he was 19.

From the later books I think he always missed Ireland. He was a public school teacher for 30 years (I'm now reading the third book in the trilogy, TEACHER MAN) -- he always WANTED to write, but didn't. He considered himself a failure. Then, when he retired, he wrote ANGELA'S ASHES.

I remember hearing when the book came out (does anyone know if this is true??) that he knew so many people from his evenings in NY bars that they helped him find an editor -- an editor who loved the ms. When the book was published, he was 66; and it sold FIVE MILLION copies.

But what probably pleased him just as much was what a good book it is -- not for everyone, maybe -- I know I'm a sucker for stories about children who survive tough times -- but even those who don't like it would, I think, admit that it's really well-written.

Sometimes being a writer can seem like an idiotic choice to make -- but it's something at which you CAN succeed at any age. It's not like being a baseball player or ballerina.....there is always a chance that one day you'll write something that is a huge success.

And I believe that all of us, no matter how we try not to and tell ourselves we're being unrealistic, cherish that hope. Otherwise, why would anyone do it?

I'm not saying that is THE motive -- there are others, including the sheer joy of it (at times). But that hope -- unrealistic as you know it is --  helps keep you writing, especially during the (many) "you'll just have to get through this" phases of finishing a novel.

sky ceiling, step 2

So, now it was time for step two of Rain Dragon's sky ceiling. I wanted it to be clouds and blue sky during the day but I wanted it to be stars at night.  I wanted the stars to be pretty realistic, those glow-in-the-dark star stickers just didn't seem right after all the work I did to make the clouds. So using the intergoogles I found this make your own planetarium kit  and put it on my Christmas list:

Thanks, Santa!

It was a pretty neat kit. You choose the date and time of your star chart, project it and , following the projection, dab in glow-in-the-dark paint:

I choose Rain's Dragon's birthday as the time and date!

I think the star theater was made for a bigger room because there was a fair amount of distortion. Also, it was impossible to dab the glow in the dark paint in a neat way and at first I was in a nervous panic that I was ruining my clouds.

But, surprisingly, it turned out great! The overall effect is actually rather magical, though you will have to take my word for it because none of the photos came out.  Suffice to say it came out so well that I might do a star ceiling for my studio, too!

Back to earth with a thud

   




I've always loved Little Bear (as drawn by Maurice Sendak)

imagining himself flying to the moon and telling his mother all about his plans.
And I also love his mother, in the words of Else Minarik, replying that maybe he is "a fat little bear cub" and "will come down very fast, with a big  plop."

I've landed with a big thud: my book is off to its first readers and I'm back in the world of doing my freelance work and getting my taxes done and cleaning my house, those kinds of things. Being OUT OF that world and in another of one's own creation is part of the fun of writing.

But this book reminded me of the other things I love about writing -- things I haven't felt in a long, long time. When I revise, I can just do it -- and for long hours at a stretch; it's very satisfying to be so engrossed and to see something get better. The first draft is usually torture, though: all the waiting, all the times when nothing comes or what does seems (and may well be) completely inadequate. This time, though, sometimes what I wrote in the first draft  surprised me and  made me laugh out loud, and that was fun, too.

One difference between a book that has life and potential and one that doesn't are those surprises, those ideas that just come....but those moments don't mean the book as a whole is GOOD or even works.

What I enjoyed most, though, was being IN the book: not wanting to do anything else. Not thinking about anything else. Waking up in the morning and wanting to write -- even though it usually took a lot of dawdling before that happened.

This is the first book I've really enjoyed writing in a long, long time -- and whether it all holds together or not (my biggest worry), whatever my first readers say about it, I've had that -- and learned a lot, too, about how to make it happen.

perspective

So the big library awards were announced on Monday and my book did not receive one. Of course, I wasn't expecting one but I admit after hearing some very respectable people favoring it, I did nurture some hopes.

However, even though the award was not meant to be, it's been heartwarming to hear from individuals who thought the book was worthy. If anything it reminds me that my pact as an author is with the reader. I promise to create my absolute best for the readers of my book, not for a committee and not for an award. And the winning books are wonderful...heck, I probably would've chosen them over mine as well.

This year, while the winners were being called and the announced I was at a doctor's appointment for Rain Dragon and she had to get her vaccination shots. I hate when she has to get shots, I've had to hold her while the nurse pricks her and she looks at me with wails of betrayal.  I feel awful;  the last time she got her shot I had to close my eyes and not watch.

But on Monday, for the very first time she didn't cry. When the nurse poked her with the needle, she tensed up, screwed up her face but didn't cry. She just sucked her fingers and looked at me as if to say, "Now, can we go home?"

I wouldn't be human if I didn't admit I was a little disappointed about the awards, but if Rain Dragon can be that brave, I think her mama can take some lumps too.

Congrats to all the winners!!

It's "Dumpling Days" for Julia!

Like Anna and Grace, I’m having work done on my new home. I’m fortunate to be able to have renovations done while still living at my “other” house—the place that I have called home for nearly thirty-seven years.

In late December, I posted a couple of pictures of the built-in bookcases that we had installed in the upstairs office/library/den of our new home.

I’ve already begun filling the shelves—mostly with children’s picture books.

 
Because I have sooooo many books, my husband and I decided to have another built-in bookcase made for our upstairs hallway. Village Woodworking in Topsfield (MA) did such a wonderful job with our bookcases and china cabinet that we also decided to have them make us a media center with bookshelves, drawers, and other storage for our living room.

 Our Built-in China Cabinet

Julia likes to visit the upstairs “library” at our new house, look at the picture books, pull some off of the shelves and “read” them. Sometimes, she insists on taking one of the picture books back over to HER side of the house. 

I often grab my “gram cam” to snap pictures of Julia reading books.

Julia reading Secret Seahorse.

Julia reading Miss Mary Mack.

One of Julia’s new favorites isn’t a picture book. It’s Grace’s novel Dumpling Days. One night last week, she refused to go to bed without the book. On Wednesday afternoon, she sat on the floor of the family room quietly flipping through the pages and looking at the sketches that Grace included in her novel. That night, her dad told me she chose Dumpling Days over her favorite stuffed animal when he put her to bed.

Julia reading Dumpling Days yesterday afternoon.

 Babies loving books! Is there anything better?