Sharjah Children’s Book Festival 2016

Posted on December 30, 2016 by lenorelook

As this year comes to a close, I’m grateful for many marvelous adventures and the beautiful, kind souls that shared my journey through 2016, and what a journey it was!

One thing that I will never forget is the generous, and warmest hospitality that Miss Quarrat and the Sharjah Children’s Book Festival, and host schools, extended to me in the United Arab Emirates in April. Here I am getting on my flight from JFK to Dubai. The Sharjah Book Festival flew me Business Class on Emirates. I hate long flights, but this flight wasn’t long enough!

My first driver and car upon arrival in Dubai. Little did I know that I would have a fleet of fancy cars and handsome drivers at my disposal every day!

Opening ceremonies with members of the royal family.

A place for interviews. They were so well-organized!

A small corner of the exhibition hall:

I visited schools in Dubai. Here I am at GEMS, Our Own English School for Girls, speaking to the high school students:

I had a very enthusiastic audience!

And here I am at the GEMS, Our Own English School for boys, presenting to the primary grades.

When I finished, the boys gave me this: Yes, I work for flowers! Always! THANK YOU, Boys!!!

Another day, I presented to Indian International School:The students were very enthusiastic readers, and wonderful listeners. At the end, their principal presented me with a lovely award, and a lovingly made collage, both of which I brought home, across two continents and an ocean. THANK YOU, Girls!!!

Here I am with the younger students. They wore a different uniform from their older schoolmates. I like the plaid! Many of them are now following me on Instagram, and it’s been fun to follow them too! Thank you for being so inspiring!!!

In between school visits, I spoke at the conference. Here I am being interviewed in Arabic!

I was holding my earphones and listening very intently to the simultaneous translation into English. No one else needed it! Then when I spoke, I could hear the Arabic translation. It was very cool!

I was taken to many special events, and treated like a beloved family member.

In the Arabian Desert with my new friend, Alison McGee and Miss Camel. We rode the dunes in four-wheel drives, I sand-surfed on a snowboard, watched a whirling dervish mystic perform in the desert, and held this beautiful falcon. She was fairly heavy, I had to use both hands!

The Sharjah Library, set for a special dinner . . .

for children’s authors from around the world:

The HCA, Home for Children’s Authors, overlooking the Persian Gulf.

I really loved it here, where children’s authors are rock stars and providing good books is a national obsession.

THANK YOU, Miss Qurrat, and the Sharjah Book Festival, for inviting me to the MOST AMAZING children’s book festival in the world!!! I met so many extraordinary, inspiring people. I am so grateful. Please invite me back!!! P.S. If you look closely, you can see that Alison and I got badass henna tattoos. Arabic lessons are next!Did you know that you can tell where someone is from by the way they tie their scarf? Here I am distinctly tied as a native of . . . . (hit reply with your answer!).

Yumi Heo, Dearest Friend, Kindest Soul

Posted on November 18, 2016 by lenorelook

By Charise Harper and Lenore Look

With heavy hearts we share the news that our dearest friend and beloved colleague,Yumi Heo, mother to Auden and Sara Jane, wife to Steven Dana, daughter and granddaughter, sister to Yun and Yunsoo, award-winning author and illustrator, whose picture books brought to colorful life Korean and Scottish folktales, as well as stories of contemporary Asian and Asian-American families, passed away on November 5, 2016, in White Plains, NY, after a courageous battle with cancer. She was 51.

Charise: I remember our first hello. I don’t always remember hellos, but ours was important. It was the first time I thought, “I’m going to like it here.” I was new to New York and eager to find like-minded creative friends. It wasn’t easy, I was illustrating a book and looking after two small children – free time was scarce. One day while walking in Rye, New York, something in a store window caught my eye. As I got closer, I realized the entire display was made up of books by Yumi Heo – one of my favorite illustrators. I’m not generally brave, but I summoned up the courage, marched into the store and asked, “Why do you have so many of Yumi Heo’s books in the window?” The man behind the counter said, “Yumi Heo is my wife.” We talked for a while, and I told him I made books too. Suddenly he picked up the phone. “I’m going to call Yumi and tell her you’re here.” Now I was worried, there was no way Yumi Heo was going to know who I was. Well, she did and after that first hello, we became friends. I am grateful for that day. Grateful that my family got to know Yumi and Steven and their children. We have shared many holidays and Thanksgivings together. We have supported each other’s creative adventures and shared dreams for the future. Yumi always inspired me. She was fearless in her art, incredibly creative, sweet, gentle, loyal, determined and funny, and always- all these things with a smile. My children adored her. I feel lucky to have known her. It’s not easy to say good-bye.

Lenore: Yumi illustrated three of my picture books, which garnered many starred reviews and awards, including two Charlotte Zolotow Honor Awards and ALA Notable Books. But more importantly, she became one of my dearest, sweetest friends. She was very good at friendship maintenance, and she’d often pick up the phone just to ask how I was doing. And up until a year ago, we were meeting every few months at the ice rink in Hackensack, NJ, where Sara Jane was training, to chat and plan new books together. We first met through my editor, Anne Schwartz, who paired us together for HENRY’S FIRST-MOON BIRTHDAY and UNCLE PETER’S AMAZING CHINESE WEDDING. After that, we did POLKA-DOT PENGUIN POTTERY, which is autobiographical – everything that happens in that book actually happened during the day I spent in her pottery studio, where she had invited me to “try something new” to help dispel my writer’s block. It worked! Our day together became our next book. Charise was there too – and appears as a store, “Charise’s Cookie Caper” – and her children became characters – Ivy and Luther (their real names). Yumi is herself in the work – and she really is like that – happy, fun, playing wonderful music, and busy, busy – doing a thousand things at once, helping everyone all the time. She also loved introducing her friends to each other – I think she loved seeing people she enjoyed, enjoy one another.

The gang, the day Yumi introduced me to Charise Harper, author and illustrator of the popular FASHION KITTY series, in 2007. L-R: Charise Harper, Yumi Heo, Sara Jane, Auden.

Born in the rural village of Kang Wang Do, Wangju, Korea, Yumi first came to the United States in 1989, as a student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. There she met Steven Dana, a fellow student, who became her husband.

“As a child,” Steven said, “her mother had a rule for her. Every family outing or picnic that the family went on, Yumi had to bring crayons and paper with her.”

Using collage, pencil and oil, Yumi’s work is characterized by its strong use of color and cut-outs, turning text into frantic activity that sings with a child’s sense of wonder and joie de vivre. Insects, bizarre little creatures, strangely shaped inanimate objects, random pencil marks, scribbles, patterns, and other-worldly flowers often float dream-like in the background of the main action, creating a narration of their own. Publishers Weekly has praised her “Matisse-like art” as a combination of the Cheshire cat, Lane Smith, Maira Kalman, “with a touch of Marc Chagall.” Her signature style was offbeat, playful and childlike, as though rendered by the child or animal character within the book, with “details that accentuate . . . emotions, and . . . traditions.”

“Yumi was one of the gentlest, most dedicated and creative people I’ve had the joy to work with,” says Anne Schwartz, at Schwartz and Wade Books. “Her art was quirky; it was playful; it was exciting; it was deeply original. Her vision was unlike anyone else’s, and working with her was inspiring for me. I have a hard time believing that she is gone; I will really miss her.”

Yumi illustrated SO SAY THE LITTLE MONKEYS, by Nancy Van Laan, SMILE, LILY, by Candace Fleming, and THE LONELY LIONESS AND THE OSTRICH CHICKS, by Verna Aardema, a NY Times Best Illustrated book, with Schwartz.

The happy, frenetic activity of her pages can be used to describe the pace at which she worked, producing 35 books over a 22-year career that began with the publication of THE RABBIT’S JUDGMENT, written by Suzanne Crowder Han in 1994, to her final book, SOMETIMES I AM BOMBALOO, written by Rachel Vail, released in May 2016, when Yumi had already devoted herself full-time, to fighting the relapse of her cancer. Additionally, she had also created public art for the Queens #7 NYC subway line, and short animations for Nick Jr. In 2005, she founded her pottery studio, Polka-dot Penguin Pottery in Rye, NY, which became a creative outlet for children throughout Westchester County and Connecticut.

Yumi’s own exuberant personality was reflected in her sunny, dining room studio, filled with books and quirky little stuffed animals that she had made by hand. It felt like a sacred place of wild invention and even wilder dreams, especially in the windowless little corner where she sat at her drafting table. This is the photo I took of her in her studio in 2008, when I saw it for the first time, and that’s where she’ll always be for me.

We are devastated by the loss of our beautiful and cherished friend. There is no tribute adequate enough for a life that brought as much kindness and joy to others as hers did. But we offer two haikus, Charise’s first, followed by mine:

white page perfect line

worn, wispy, soft, bold, fresh

eye to heart to soul

Yumi, is that you?

Tea wisps, frog shoes, tiger pipes

Page after page, love.

A private family service will be held in Korea.

Steven has set up a Yumi Heo Memorial Fund to help their family through this difficult time. Any amount is deeply appreciated. If you would like to make a donation, please go to: gofundme.com/krlds

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Debbie Alvarez, Human Being Extraordinaire

Posted on December 24, 2015 by lenorelook

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My good friend, Debbie Alvarez, Mother to Declan, Wife to Doug, Sister to Rachel, Daughter and Granddaughter, Avocate of children’s authors and illustrators, Fierce Reader of books, Enlightened Keeper of Literature, Adventurous Traveller, Inspiring Leader, Brave Warrior, Human Being Extraordinaire, passed away this week.

I am heartbroken.

The above photo shows Debbie, just minutes after we first met, when she welcomed me to the Bradbury School library in Hong Kong, for Author’s Day in 2012.

The next year, she and her family joined me at Shaolin Temple in China for a week of Kung fu lessons.

Earlier this year, she invited me to stay with her while I was on book tour in Hong Kong.

We had many heart-to-heart talks, the kind you have with a BFF you grew up with. Here we are during our final dinner together, with another wonderful librarian friend that she introduced me to, Tanja Galetti, in the middle. (Photo will be added at a later time.)

We kept in touch through email and by following one another’s blogs and social media posts.

We said we would make plans to have adventures together in the U.S. after they moved back to Oregon.

I promised that I would come see her at Christmas, when I would be visiting my mom in Seattle.

We settled on December 26. In her last email to me, on 12/15/15, she wrote, “So excited about you coming…Many hugs, much love, Debbie.”

The next day, she posted an alarming update on her blog, Life’s Journey, Interrupted, in which she has documented her battle with cancer. For more than two years, she gave readers an unflinching look at what it’s like to fight for her life. The harder the blow, the more courageous she became. She faced the storm and hollered so fiercely that it scared the bejesus out of her tumors. But she never became a full-time patient. She charged full-speed ahead as a mom, librarian, reading advocate, writer, adventurer, and a nurturer of enduring friendships. It was an uncommon bravery, the likes of which I have never seen. I believed in a miracle for her — that she would triumph. She had to. Her Son With the Most Tender Heart will have a mother who beat the odds to see him marry and to hold his children, just because she said so. But now, she said she might have pneumonia.

Pneumonia. It’s not a blow, like chemotherapy. Or a feeding tube. Or even a new tumor. It is Death’s threshold itself. Anyone who’s had it knows. I’ve stared into the airless abyss myself, as a child with asthma. It fills your lungs with liquid, just like that.

The next thing I knew, she was gone.

But she was SO alive, that even today, she managed to post to her blog, The Styling Librarian, which I’ve re-blogged here.

I am sad beyond words. I will not be saying hello to her again, but I will be traveling to Portland after Christmas, to say goodbye.

To paraphrase Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web, it is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good librarian. Debbie was both.

Now on Instagram!

Posted on September 10, 2015 by lenorelook

Check out my un-bloogie globby — more pics, less text! Click on the photo icon in the right-hand column, it will take you to my Instagram account. My handle is lenore_look, in case the link doesn’t work.

Follow me on Instagram for another chance to win a signed copy of the newest Alvin Ho book (see below). Winners will be announced soon!

Sidewalk Flowers

Posted on March 3, 2015 by lenorelook

Dear Reader,

Last week I visited Stony Lane School and Memorial School in Paramus, NJ, and Pine Tree School in Monroe, NY. It was such great fun! A great big THANK YOU to the marvelous librarians Leslie Rochman, Marie Creste and Nicole Lee, who hosted me and organized my day and plugged my books at their respective schools. Author Day is a lot of work for the librarian! I appreciate all your hard work more than you know! Thank you!!!

I was on my way to more school visits and to speak at the Hong Kong International Young Readers Festival this afternoon, when I missed my flight :(. So a librarian in Hong Kong, who worked very hard to organize my day for Thursday, is now scrambling to reschedule me and to fix Authorless Day on Thursday. I’m so sorry, Tanja!!! I feel terrible :(. And my apologies to your entire school :(…….

With a quiet, unexpected evening at home, I’d like to share with you a really wonderful new book that my friend, the Canadian poet JonArno Lawson, just published two days ago! I guarantee this book will make us all feel much better:Sidewalk Flowers is a wordless picture book that follows a little girl as she follows her distracted father through the city. She gathers flowers (weeds, really) that grow in the cracks of sidewalks and walls, while he talks on his cell phone and pays little attention to her.Once she has a full bouquet, she starts giving them away, one flower at a time, to the people and animals that come across her path — a friendly dog, a little dead bird, a sleeping man on a bench, and her own brothers and mother. Each encounter transforms both giver and receiver, and by the end, I felt transformed by my encounter with this book.

So I asked JonArno about it, and this is what he had to say:

What inspired you to write Sidewalk Flowers?

It was based on a walk I took with my daughter, Sophie, two days after my youngest son, JoJo, was born. My wife, Amy, was at home with Ashey (my older son, who was 4 at the time) and the baby, and I was in a rush to get home. I wasn’t really paying attention to anything – I was in a hurry, I was anxious, the city looked ugly to me, and as we rushed up Bathurst Street (in Toronto) on foot, while I looked about for a cab, Sophie was gathering little flowers out of the cement cracks in the sidewalk and the retaining walls along the hill. When I finally noticed what she was doing, she already had a small bouquet, and when we got home, she decorated Amy, Ashey (who was playing with snails in the garden), and JoJo (who was asleep in his stroller).

What is Sophie like? Or what was she like at that age?

Sophie is a very generous, loving and determined person. She was then too. She just turned 14!

How did she respond to the book?

She liked the idea of it as a story, and she liked the little mock-up I made of it originally, when I was shopping it around to publishers. All three kids were very encouraging when it got rejected multiple times – they all felt it had a good chance of getting picked up eventually. They were delighted when it finally got accepted, and they were in awe of what Sydney (Smith) did with it – so was (and am) I! Sydney’s work took it to a whole other level.

Did you involve her in the writing process?

No, though really you could say she wrote the main melody of the story simply by living it! I gave it a definite shape, with important editorial contributions from Sheila Barry (at Groundwood Books). And then Sydney gave it its visual pacing and conjured and incorporated amazing unexpected details into it. Any way you look at it, it was a highly collaborative work. Amy, Ashey, and JoJo being our destination are an essential part of the story as well.

How do you write a wordless book?

I could never have planned it. I’m very word-oriented. I had to see it happen, as I saw it – which was lucky – and I never even attempted a version with words. I knew it had to be quiet, like it was in life, and that words would take away from it – they couldn’t add anything. Since doing Sidewalk Flowers I had another idea for a wordless book, but interestingly, again it was something I saw happen – it didn’t come to me in words. Sydney and I will be collaborating on that as well.

A poet is already sparse with words, how was it to make the jump into wordlessness altogether?

I’ve felt a bit vulnerable, on the publishing side of things (but not during the submission/rejection part of it). When it came out, I realized that my contribution was invisible – it was completely immersed in Sydney’s pictures. I hadn’t realized how attached my ego was to the story until it came out – and then I felt a bit like Gollum, wanting to return with “my precious” story to a dark lake under a mountain.

Both you and the illustrator live in Toronto. Are those actual places in Toronto depicted in the book?

Sydney captured a lot of the actual walk in the first half of the book (he was good enough to walk it – he was brand new to the city at the time, having moved here from Halifax just before). So between Dupont and Bathurst Street, and Vaughan Rd. and St. Clair – Sydney’s captured a lot of the actual walk (though he’s expertly blended the best parts of different sections of the street). There are some glimpses of Chinatown, where Sydney’s studio is as well. He described the book as his “love letter to Toronto” – and you can see that. So it isn’t strictly the walk – he’s using different bits of Toronto, especially in the second half of the book.

The scene of the dead bird with flowers on his chest made me cry. I thought of my father who had died recently, covered with flowers as he was lowered into the earth. It’s a very emotional book. Is there a scene that touches you particularly?

For me it’s the embankment scene, where she’s scrambled up next to the bus stop. This is the scene I remember best from the actual walk – Sophie went up that little embankment singing, taking her time.

In real life, that embankment is on the other side of the street, and a bit further south. Sydney’s put it right next to a small strip of stores closer to St. Clair, and in one of those stores I do all of my photocopying! When I brought the book in to show the owners they were delighted!

Will you do more wordless books?

For sure one more – I’m working on it right now. After that, I’m not sure.

Thank you, JonArno, for the wonderful gift of this book! And congratulations on starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, and counting!

Now doesn’t that make you want to RUN out and get it???!!! It’s absolutely fabulous!!! You’ll love it!!!

Yoga & Writing & a New Season

Posted on February 10, 2015 by lenorelook

Dear Reader,

Here’s an interview with me that my yoga studio published recently on their blog: http://suryayogaacademy.com/service/blog/2015/01/31/surya-spotlight-lenore-look-writer–published-author

Yes, I do a lot of yoga during the winter months when I’m holed up writing. It keeps me limber and somewhat sane.

Tomorrow school-visit season begins again in earnest! YAY! HOORAY!!!

I will be meeting the young readers at Central Valley Elementary School in Central Valley, NY. Hello Crusaders!!!! I hope you’re ready for a really FANTASTIC day tomorrow 🙂 🙂 🙂 !!!

My Lucky Day!

Posted on June 30, 2014 by lenorelook

SANTA MARIA, CA — When I got to my mini rocket in Los Angeles this morning to blast off to Santa Maria near the Vandenberg Air Force Base . . . I nearly tripped a gentleman with a cane. Bad me. He’s at the center of the photograph above.

Later, I noticed that his shirt was embroidered with the NASA globe insignia. So I had to ask — “Are you going to the launch?” When you’re an author it’s usually a good idea to talk to strangers. You could learn something.

He turned out to be James O. Norman, Director, Launch Services. He’s the guy in charge of the rocket!!! It was my lucky day! Normally, Mr. Norman works at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. But today, since he’s the BOSS of the team of scientists working on the Delta II rocket, he had come to oversee the pre-launch testing (not open to the media). Oh, I should have told him I was a member of the top-secret military unit responsible for the new paint job, or something like that, when he asked what OCO-2 unit I work in. He thought I was a rocket scientist! And so did the car rental guys!

I digress.

Anyway, this is what I learned from Mr. Norman: when the Delta II blasts off, it goes from zero to Mach22 in eight minutes. That’s 22 times faster than the speed of sound!!! The speed of sound is 761.207051 miles per hour. So the Delta II goes from 0 to 16,746.5551 miles per hour in eight minutes.

And I thought that race car I drove in Tucson was badass.

I have NO CONCEPT of this power. None.

But in about 28 hours, I will find out.

For those of you who want to know everything-you-need-to-know about the OCO-2-before I take the tour tomorrow, here’s the pre-launch press briefing that they gave us via an Internet live-feed today:

Enjoy!

Tucson Festival of Books

Posted on March 19, 2014 by lenorelook

Dear Reader,

I just had the most incredible weekend.

I went to the Tucson Festival of Books (a k a @TFOB).

When you’re an author, you must go to this. Here are the reasons why:

1. You get to walk a red carpet. This was my wonderful welcome host, Emily Morrison. She and her husband Ted gave me a ride from my hotel to the University of Arizona campus where the event took place. I sat in the backseat of their car between Jacquelyn Mitchard and Christina Baker Kline. In case you don’t know (and I didn’t), it was for Jackie’s book, The Deep End of the Ocean, that Oprah started her book club. And Christina’s book, Orphan Train, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for the past seven weeks. I had no idea. I asked them dumb questions like, “Did you say your name is Pritchard?” And “What’s your favorite book that you’ve written?”

2. You get treated to a fancy dinner. Your book is the table’s centerpiece, and they make a little place card just for you. The other author at my table was D.J. MacHale. He’s a dashing dude, but I was too shy to say hello. As for his book, well . . . you don’t see it do you? I wonder what happened to his book . . . ??? (Shhh, when you’re vegetarian, many things are edible!)

3. You meet Kathy and Jerry Short. Here’s Kathy holding the beautiful service award she won from the Arizona Daily Star. Kathy is the founder and director of the Worlds of Words library at the College of Education at the University of Arizona. It contains the largest collection of children’s books in North America., around 40,000 titles. This is what it looks like:There are beautiful murals by David Christiana that invite you into another dimension:Like this:Aren’t they fantastic?!!!

Back inside, there’s an artist’s studio where illustrators are invited to come and work on their books:And a classroom for graduate students:And a large collection of signed first-edition books and a collection of signed original artwork, including these from Grace Lin:And friendly, helpful gatekeepers at the front desk:Dr. Short donated much of the books from her own collection from her travels around the world. She is also a professor of Language, Reading and Culture, the President-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and is responsible for inviting the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators to the festival and determining the format of their presentations. She was also a member of last year’s Caldecott committee. In other words, she’s a super-duper VIP in the world of children’s lit. So you can imagine my surprise to find myself seated at her table. And you can imagine my further surprise when the MC mentioned my name as an example of the authors Kathy brought to this year’s festival. Really? Me?

Oh, I should have fixed myself up after getting off the plane!

4. You get to hear Rebecca Eaton, the executive producer of Masterpiece Theater, give the keynote speech. She’s the executive producer of Downton Abbey. I LOVE Downton Abbey! And she’s speaking and coughing into the same microphone in which my name was just spoken. Just when you think you’ve died and gone to book festival heaven . . . .

5. You get to appear on a panel discussion with God. Lois Lowry, two-time Newbery winner, and the winner of the international Hans Christian Anderson Award and everything else. You can’t stand any closer to the epicenter of children’s lit than this. Wow. I’m only cosmic dust in her orbit, but here I was in her orbit nonetheless! Orbiting on the other side is Patrick Jennings, author of the Guinea Dog series and other funny books. God even wanted a selfie with us!

6. After you’ve touched divinity, other authors start orbiting around you.Who are these guys anyway???

They were sticking to me like cosmic dust or something.They are none other than the award-winning illustrators and authors, James Ransome and Jarrett Krosoczka, my co-conspirators in crime, I mean creation. We had a gut-busting, butt-kicking good time in our session on our journeys as authors, moderated by the great Marney Weimers, ringmaster extraordinaire. Our wild, crazy circus swung between the Lunch Lady’s robot socks:And The Rope taking a million selfies for his Facebook page!

What a quick fall from divinity to photo bomb.

I rush for the shuttle to take me to the Phoenix airport.

7. Back in the real world, no one cares that you’ve had drinks and dinner with God. You’re not cosmic dust. You’re not even a photo bomb. Your name is not on the passenger manifest for the shuttle because your publicist did not make a reservation for you because you’re a nobody. The driver looks at you contemptuously and flicks you on the sidewalk like a cigarette butt.

Your plane leaves in three hours and you are two hours away from the airport.

You cannot miss your flight because you need to be at a school visit within 48 hours.

Your superpower is not IT (Instantaneous Transport).

8. But Jerry Short’s is. He owns this awesome car:It’s a Shelby GT500. It has a 6th gear that will take you up to 185 mph at 2000 rpm. The engine looks like this:It is a BEAST, and a menace:See the cobra? If you see it in your rearview mirror, it means you better get out of the way!

Whoa, baby.

Without hesitation, my gracious host who had taken me to the shuttle stop and insisted on staying until I got on the shuttle, throws my bags back into the Shelby and I tuck into shotgun, and off we roar, spinning the yellow Tucson dust behind us. I’ve never been in a faster car in my life! Yikes!!!

To take my mind off ID (Instantaneous Death), I ask him lots of questions about his car. I learn all about the rare, expensive Shelby. It’s FAST. It’s DANGEROUS. It can go from 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds, and eat 1/4 mile in just 12.5 seconds at 119 mph. It is BADASS.

Jerry handled The Beast really well. I began to relax.

Then about halfway, we made a pit stop. We needed the restrooms and a soda.

Coming out of the convenience store, Jerry asked, “Wanna drive it?”

That was what he said. But what I heard was, “I dare you to drive it.”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Me, drive it?” I squeaked.

“You’ll have a lot of fun,” he said. We were walking towards the car, and somehow I was on the driver’s side and he was on the passenger’s side. When I looked down, the keys were in my hand. Wait a minute. How did that happen???!!!

“I’d love to drive it, but I think you’re much better at it, so I better not,” I sputtered nervously. You’d sputter too if you’re facing Certain Death just minutes away!

“Press the unlock button,” Jerry said.

Before I knew it, I was pressing the button to buzz the driver’s seat forward so that my foot could reach the clutch. I adjusted the mirrors. I grabbed the stick shift. I don’t think I said my prayers though. It was too late for that. As soon as you turn the ignition on The Beast, you’ve sold your soul.

I rolled gently out of the parking lot, getting a feel for it like one would gently feel a cobra before jumping on it’s back and riding it. Oh, I was SOOOO scared!!!!!!

Then the on-ramp. I know what to do on on-ramps. You accelerate. You get up to speed with the traffic on the highway. You merge. Your life is NOT supposed to flash before your eyes. You are NOT supposed to be thinking of how you’re a few feet away from dying without a will. Intestate they call it. Intestate. Intestate. Intestate. Intestate on the interstate. Gulp. I never imagined that my final moments on earth would be filled with this single word. It doesn’t even sound nice. It sounds like something I will not mention.

Still rolling on the on-ramp, I was no longer waking a cobra, but I was driving like an old lady behind a walker. I heard Jerry say, “Get on it. Get on it.”

Huh? Then before I knew it, I got on it. VAROOOOOOM!!!!

I peeled the asphalt right off the road.

I shifted into 6th gear and hit 90 mph. Maybe even 100, when I wasn’t looking.

I passed cars on the right and left.“Get on it,” Jerry said again.

I passed 16-wheelers.

I flew past a couple of cop cars waiting by the side of the road. Oops!

I sweated a little. I slowed down a LOT.

Then I went back to dodging drivers who tailed me, pushing the atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed!

I passed the Arizona Shuttle that had left me on the sidewalk :).

I owned Route 10, honey.

I zoomed all the way to the Phoenix airport, just like that. Here I am at the end of my ride:Badass.

THANK YOU, Jerry and Kathy Short for everything!!! You guys really ROCK!!!!

Valentines from Canada!!!

Posted on February 14, 2014 by lenorelook

Valentines Day.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

When I was little, it was a holiday I dreaded. I loved addressing all my cards and having little candies ready to give away.

But horrible thoughts loomed.

“What if I don’t get back as many Valentines as I give away?”

Or worse . . . “What if I don’t get any???”

It was a possibility. This was in the bad old days before the invention of class lists and valentines for all. With my very own eyes I’d seen classmates collapse in tears because their VRR (Valentine Receiving Receptacle), carefully made with construction paper as a class activity and taped over the edge of their desk (like a Christmas stocking hung by the chimney with care, only heart-shaped), was cruelly EMPTY at the end of the day.

It’s not something you forget.

So I still dread Valentine’s Day.

Horrible thoughts loom.

Lucky for me, last week ended well. Fourth graders at the Whitney Junior Public School in Toronto, Ontario,where snow days for inclement weather have not yet been invented, sent me the sweetest letters:scan0001

So this week, with no Valentines flooding my Valentine Receiving Receptacle, and with the hope of receiving any rapidly diminishing, I dashed off an email to their teacher, “Do you think your students would mind if I post their letters on Valentine’s Day and pass them off as Valentines? . . . Do you think one of your students would mind drawing me colorful artwork to go with the letters? Maybe a Valentine, even?” It was as utterly desperate as it sounds. Believe me.

His reply: “We never had this whole Valentine’s Day thing in the Netherlands where I grew up, maybe that’s why according to UNICEF the children in the Netherlands are the happiest in the world.”

Then I received not one piece of artwork.

But a trove of them:Valentines

They made Valentines for the characters in ALVIN HO!!!

Wow. It’s the BEST VALENTINE’S DAY EVER!!!

THANK YOU, Mr. van Hoeijen’s Amazing Fourth Graders!!! You’re SUPER-DUPER FANTASTIC AND WONDERFULLY KIND AND THOUGHTFUL!!!!!!!

And here’s a little interview with their teacher, Mr. Bert van Hoeijen, who is from the Netherlands and can read in Dutch to his students whenever he feels like it:

How did you come across Alvin Ho? And why did you choose to read him to your class?

Ms. Soares, a colleague from another school introduced me to Alvin. I thought the book was humorous and would interest many students so they would start reading more themselves. There are also many things in your books we can talk about in class. Just like good readers make connections, visualise, infer, etc. while they are reading we talk about your stories in class while I’m reading them.

Did you do a book project or activities with Alvin?
We made organised lists and PDKs in class. We also made Valentine cards today for our favourite Alvin Ho character.

Is your school a Dutch school? (You had mentioned reading books in Dutch.)

I teach in a Canadian Anglophone school. I read a book to the class that was written in Dutch, but when I read it out loud, I tell the story in English or none of the students would understand me 🙂

What languages are your students learning at school?Â
In grade four we learn English and we start learning French.

What languages do they speak at home?

Most speak English at home but we have some who know gibberish, French, Tagalog (nannies helped), Farsi, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Manderin, Italian, and Spanish at different levels.

How did you end up teaching in Canada?

I visited Canada a few times during my last year of university and I fell in love with it so I moved here and started teaching a year later.

How is this school different from the school you attended in the Netherlands?

I love teaching here. I have very talented and kind students in my class. I do think students have to do more tests and homework than we had.

Happy Valentine’s Day EVERYONE!!!

Year-End Thanks and Awards!

Posted on December 31, 2013 by lenorelook

Dear Readers,

As this year ends and another one begins, I have much to be thankful for. So let me begin.

Thank you for following my blog.

Thank you for reading my books.

Thank you to all the schools and libraries who hosted me this year.

Thank you for treating me to lunch.

Thank you for eating lunch with me 🙂 .

Thank you, parents, for buying my books so that I have something to sign when I get to your schools.

Thank you, young readers, for laughing at my jokes 😀 and rolling in the aisles as though on cue!

Thank you for HUGS!!!

Thank you, Dan Yaccarino, for a rave review in the New York Times. My first!

Thank you, Schwartz & Wade, for publishing my books.

Thank you, Random House, for inviting me to Take-Your-Child-To-Work Day. I felt seven-years-old all day 🙂 !

Thank you, kung fu monks at Shaolin Temple for being my friends.

Thank you Debbie, Doug and Declan for being true kung fu warriors.

Thank you, Wall Street Journal, for naming BRUSH OF THE GODS as WSJ Best Children’s Book of the Year 2013. Read the article here.

Thank you, Booklist, for naming BRUSH as a Booklist Books for Youth Editor’s Choice 2013. (Article to appear Jan 1, 2014.)

Thank you, Mrs. Tracewell’s second-grade class at Emerald Heights Elementary in Silverdale, WA, for your letter and for sending me not one, but ALL of the most prestigious literary awards an author can ever hope to get:Wow! I can’t believe I won all these. Aren’t they fantastic?!!! I put them up on my writing wall today, just above my desk. Their letter begins thus,

Dear Ms. Look,

Hello! We are 2nd grade students in Washington state — at a school you have visited [twice!] before, Emerald Heights. We just finished your first Alvin Ho book — Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things. We really enjoyed EVERYTHING about the book — including the humor, the repetition, the illustrations, the characters, the funny phrases, and the similes! We loved it so much we are sending you 21 book awards — made specifically for you and Alvin. We hope you will feel special when you get these. I can’t believe these are mine, with my name on each of them. They are fireworks on my wall. You’ve made me feel so special, I can’t even begin to tell you. I feel like dancing!!!