I’m out in Portland today because my five siblings and I are immersed in a memorial for my dad, which will happen this weekend. He was definitely the person who nurtured my love of the outdoors. In Ethiopia, he cultivated a huge garden and would dig a raw potato out of the ground and pull
At first, my Indonesia author visits were full of monkey connections. I saw them everywhere…including at the Sacred Monkey Forest in Bali, where I took the picture of that highwire dancer. At this lovely library, the kids created their own water hole to go with my picture book, WATER HOLE WAITING, which features a monkey as
Pretty startling, eh? That’s what I thought, too, as I walked through the streets of Cambodia. And this picture is cheating just a tiny bit because Lanie’s story really starts in Indonesia. I spent all of April 2008 doing author visits to international schools in Indonesia and Cambodia. While I was there I got an
Talking about the “walking the bunny” scene In Minneapolis, the American Girl store is smack in the middle of a carnival aka the Nickelodeon area at the Mall of America. Girls and those who love them were invited to have lunch with the author. I talked–for the first time–about some of the inspirations for Lanie’s
One lane in a smear of snow. Someone is nuts enough to pass and for seconds we’re all swirling. Then, for one hundred minutes, my world is i words: One white stripe. I slide. Throat tight. Ice. Sticking to 45. I-I-I don’t like driving through snow. Love that o word. Home.
One of the moms at the store yesterday said, “Thanks for doing this on a day when most people want to be with their families.” What a sweetie to know that. And the airport was crammed and the peace-and-quiet Worldclub closed early for New Year’s Day and most eating places, too, so I munched on
Whew. If it’s January 1, this must be Minneapolis. Cold Minneapolis. But I’m still warmed by the thrilldom of meeting those young readers and scientists today. Adrienne Clarke, marketing manager in the Chicago American Girl Place, said the line was LONG. Really long. I signed books for a Lainey and a Dakota. I signed books
Happy 2010 aka the Year of Lanie Anyone who travels a lot knows the drill. I was late leaving the house because my laptop caught a virus (ugh) and I had to quickly buy the netbook I’d been considering anyway. Roads from Lawrence to Kansas City were clear enough, but I was low on gas
I was amazed and delighted that editors in the 1990s were looking for the kinds of stories that allowed me to start offering glimpses into Ethiopia, the land of my childhood. (Although I was born in Portland, Oregon, my parents moved to Ethiopia when I was two, and when I paid my first visit to
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