Favorite holiday tradition?
One of my favorite things ever is when we sit around the table at Thanksgiving and take turns telling what we are particularly thankful for, that year. I get a little choked up, especially when I listen to my sons.
Were you a teacher’s pet or teacher’s challenge?
I was a teacher’s pet up through sixth grade, and then teacher’s nightmare thereafter. (My ninth grade English teacher hated me so much, she slotted me into the slow class for tenth grade English. I couldn’t figure out why I was in a class with a high proportion of good-looking jocks, but I wasn’t complaining! My mother discovered what had happened in my senior year, but by then it was too late.)
Upon reflection, I think I was probably a fairly challenging teacher’s pet, as well.
What’s the first book report you ever wrote?
I can’t be absolutely certain, but I think it was The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes. Besides the fabulous mix of reality and fantasy, which I have always loved, the great thing about that book was that I discovered it when it was my turn to choose library books for our small in-classroom library. All the other third grade girls loved my choice, and begged to read it after me; and for a week, I was popular!
Do you like to gift wrap presents?
Yes, and I thought I was pretty good at it until we had an all-family Olympics one summer. One of the events was gift-wrapping — blindfolded — and my team put me head-to-head with my older sister, Kathy. Not to put too fine a point on it, she mopped the floor with me.
What do you wish you could tell your 10-year-old self?
In the immortal words of Bob Marley, “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘cause every little thing gonna be all right.”
What 3 children’s book authors or illustrators or editors would you like to invite to dinner?
Louisa May Alcott: She captivated me on a family vacation with Little Women. I had already read through the stack of books I’d brought for the car trip, and my mother bought that book for me instead of the comic book I wanted. Though I complained at first, I read the first page—and I was hooked forever.
C.S. Lewis: He pulled me into his magical world of Narnia, with its great themes of good and evil and children whose choices had powerful repercussions, and I only wished he had written a hundred stories for me to devour, instead of just seven.
Madeleine L’Engle: I still remember exactly where I was when I read A Wrinkle in Time in sixth grade, and how I reread the final chapter because I couldn’t bear for it to be over. When I closed the book at last, I knew that what I wanted to do most of all was to write stories like that, for kids like me.
Where’s your favorite place to read?
It depends on the season!
Winter: curled up in bed with my electric blanket on high. Summer: on the back patio, in the wooden swing, with cushions and a tall glass of something cool. And in spring or fall, on a comfortable sagging corner of my favorite couch, next to my grandfather’s old glass-fronted bookcase (which houses my favorite children’s books.)
Please invite me to your literary dinner, Lynne. I’d love to hear those three authors talk. I’ll even do the dishes after!