“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.” Diane Ackerman Here’s a powerful word. GIRLPOD. Have a girl? Are a girl? Want to make a difference for a girl? Think about girlpods and “Hope by 12”: “When a girl who lives in poverty turns twelve her life is in the hands of others.
Recently I’ve been mulling this question: If you could spend a modest amount of money or time and open the world of reading for the most brilliant, motivated, determined kids in your neighborhood, would you? I think most of my friends wouldn’t pause to answer a big ol’ YES. (The reader in this picture is the brilliant,
Back home from Christmas wanderings, I just listened to a song that was shared this year by an author friend whose heart is deeply sweet and whose words are silky and rhythmic on the tongue: http://www.kathiappelt.com/blog/books/the-angel-next-to-me/ As I listened, what I thought about…again…was losing the Christmas box in the flood of 1997. When we threw away the soggy ornaments
A new year always seems to be a time to pause, raise my head, and look around. Get my bearings. Figure out not only what kinds of visions and resolutions pull me forward into the next year of my life but also where I’ve been–and perhaps don’t wish to go again! Ethiopia celebrates the turning
“And…” (people keep asking me) “What was Seattle like??” Adjectives fail me. First of all, the dinner was sold out, which so rarely happens in my world. Ellenore, the organizer, had set a goal of 100, but 170 people bought tickets. Bidding on auction items was brisk and cheerful. The room was full of dancing
Some mornings are like this. I want a good night’s sleep before a big Seattle event that is bringing together children’s book authors (and their books), adoption parents and Ethiopian-Americans to create a literacy project in a school sandwiched between an intensely busy market and warehouse district and a desperately poor residential area of Addis Ababa.
Before my little brother was born, we were a family of girls who made up and acted out stories for days at a time. When we traveled by ship and airplane back to the United States from Ethiopia for the first time, we spent a year in Boise, Idaho. Caroline was beautiful and good. Joy was
When I’m riding in a car around Addis Ababa, the system can feel so…random. I’m always pretty glad that I don’t have to drive myself. Roads are full of people. And animals. And distractions of all sorts. In North Dakota–rural state that it is–my kids had the opportunity to be fully licensed drivers at 14.
My brother was reading aloud from something today that said depression rates are much higher in countries where people have more. The gift of focus appears when there are physical hardships that have to be overcome–and when the simple act of preparing shelter or food for a family is all-absorbing. We know we should stay in the
Sisters. I ended up with four of them. Sister relationships fill up my books and my author presentations–and now I’ve moved out to Portland where most of them live. Feelings too deep for words are connected in weird and wonderful ways with those sisters. My only older sister reminded us of this picture recently. It
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