Thank you and a Question for Teachers

This is Queen Louise calling all teachers and librarians….. do any of you know of schools using Laurie’s book SPEAK in their curriculum? If so, would you share the names of the school districts. If you are one of those teachers, please email me at queenlouise@writerlady.com. We are interested to know if they are Middle Schools or High Schools.

On behalf of Laurie and her family, THANK YOU so very much for all of the heartfelt thoughts and comments that have been sent. I have printed out the comments for Laurie’s father to read; he will be touched as well. Everyone is doing well; many stories have been shared with lots of laughs and a few tears (okay, buckets of tears), much food has been eaten, and the clouds are lifting. You are all deeply appreciated.

Emergency over, request flag raised again

Wow. This internet thing is rather handy.

Within an hour yesterday of posting my plea for speakers of Dutch, I had three offers of help. When I woke up this morning, there were three more. Thank you very much, kind blogreaders, the emergency is over. Your help was much appreciated.

Spent last night watching Number One Son race around the track at sectionals. He definitely gets his speed from his father, thank goodness. He did well enough to make next week’s state qualifiers in the 400. I cannot even begin to imagine what it feels like to move that fast. I am the turtle in the slow lane, ducking my head into my shell as the rocket-fueled racers speed by.

Bookavore has posted many author photos in her ongoing documentation of her adventures at BEA. She has a great shots of her almost-uncle, M.T. Anderson, and of Sherman Alexie, who is exercising his rights of free speech against the owners of the Seattle SuperSonics.

This weekend is devoted to going over the last-last-super-ultimate-last pass of the CHAINS galleys and looking for a bicycle. My plea for Dutch speakers went so well, I will turn to you again.

(Random wandering tangent: Dutch = Netherlands = flat = self-sufficient, energy-saving practical people = lots of bike riders = skating too, on the canals = Hans Brinker = beloved book of childhood = curled up reading on a rainy day with McIntosh apples. Sweet.)

So – do you have any advice about what bicycle I should consider buying? I would use it for going to town to pick up groceries and library books, which means it will need some kind of basket and the ability to climb hills. I also have this fantasy of riding it to the library and bookstore in Oswego, which is about 15 miles away, which means the tires have to be strong, because the shoulders of the road can be sort of cruddy. And it needs a very soft, comfortable seat. I do not want to sit on a rock, thank you very much.

Any suggestions?

Emergency – do you speak Dutch?

I just realized that I need to run two sentences in Dutch past someone who is much better at that language than I am. It is not cool to think that your character is saying “What do you want?” when in fact, you’ve written “You have a pickle growing in your ear.”

Do any of you guys speak Dutch?

If you do, please contact me at laurie AT writerlady DOT com.

I offer everlasting gratitude and public thanks in the acknowledgment of my book. I will make sure you get a free copy of it, too.

Thank you!