All roads lead to Dallas

I love the way the tangled threads of my life came together in Dallas.  I got to spend time with one of my nieces–Grace–who married a Texas guy.  What thrilldom to leave winter in Kansas and end up in their full-of-flowers (and vine-draped trees) yard and talk about the connection between local plants, local insects, local birds.  I got to sign lots of Lanie books.  I got to meet an adoption dad who is doing work in Ethiopia.  (We’d collaborated on a project to get a photographer and videographer to film Ethiopia Reads libraries—http://www.ethiopiareads.org–and also the work he’s doing in Ethiopia.  But we’d only talked on the phone before.)

And I got to meet girls with sisters.  Girls who love to read.  Those great girls who are interested in birds and butterflies and worms (more worms than at the other American Girl signings).  I told them they could look at my blog post about dirt.  I said I hoped my blog would inspire them to write about their observations and memories…and to research the things they’re interested in.

Today, for example, Twitter and the National Wildlife Federation led me to articles about something that fascinated me while I was doing research for the books (how birds learn their language) and about wrens–a bird that looms large in Lanie’s life.

http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2007/Singing-in-the-Brain.aspx

 http://bit.ly/doxoFJ  

My only disappointment was that the American Girl store sold out of my books before everyone who wanted one got one.  My niece Grace’s mother-in-law made heroic effort and buzzed over to the one of the bookstores where I’d signed the day before.  She managed to snag one in time for my signing of their books. 

A brand new little reader!  And today I’m off to the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan.