Betty Birney’s Blog

That’s the Battle of the Books in Midland, Michigan! I took a whirlwind trip to Midland and the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library to kick-off this year’s battle - its 30th year! The World According to Humphrey was on the list last year and I can now announce that Friendship According to Humphrey made the list this year.

My two speaking sessions were packed - almost 600 Midlanders turned out and we had a great time! The Grace A. Dow Memorial Library (Dow Chemical is headquartered in Midland) is a beauty with a great auditorium. The audience was enthusiastic and the question periods fun and even a little challenging!

  With Stephanie Williams and friend - a battling bear!

Thanks so much to Supervisor of Youth Services Stephanie Williams and to Youth Services Librarian Monica Anderson, who first contacted me way back when, and the GREAT-GREAT-GREAT children’s library staff. We all had a great dinner at a terrific restaurant called Zinc.

These quick trips are a little surreal, though. I was in 4 airports twice each (technically 8 airports) in less than 72 hours, and went from light snow when I left Saginaw to 90 degrees in Burbank. The plane flew dover the wildfires - it seemed as if there were more than 4 or 5 and the smoke was oppressive when I got off the plane. It’s much better today as the winds have died down but that’s not much comfort to those who lost their homes.

There’s a grim joke here in Southern California. “People say we don’t have seasons here, but we have four: Earthquake, flood, fire and mud.” Too true to be funny today.

 Dave and me

Also at the library, I got to meet Dave Rogers and wife, Delores. He’s a former editorial writer for the Bay City (MI) Times and a respected journalist, writer and local historian. He’s been in contact with my husband quite a bit due to his interest in James Gillespie Birney, my husband’s great-great grandfather, who lived in Bay City for a while. He’s quite a prominent American and his son, David Bell Birney (my husband’s great-grandfather) was a well know Civil War General. Frank hopes to get to Bay City one of these days.

On Friday night, I returned from the glorious Golden Sower Award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska.  As Humphrey would say, it was unsqueakably delightful! Every state has a state award that children vote on (called Children’s Choice awards) and the Golden Sower is Nebraska’s.

I arrived in Lincoln on Thursday afternoon, and when I looked out the window of my room at the Cornhusker Hotel, I was astounded that the state capitol had actually put the figure of the Golden Sower (that’s my award) on top of their building. What a welcome!

 Can you see him up there?

(Of course, maybe it was the other way around … he might have come before the award.)

Then there was dinner with the Golden Sower committee and the primary winners, sisters Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel, who won for their book The Great Fuzz Frenzy. Their picture books are glorious. Janet and Susan and I spent time waiting to leave for dinner by sitting at the conference reception desk, giving people definitive information about the conference. (Little did they know we just sat there to rest our feet.) The YA winner, Rick Riordan (The Lightning Thief) couldn’t be there but he and I share the same agent!

We all walked to DISH, a great restaurant in downtown Lincoln. Beautiful weather, not a cloud in the sky. I think it’s that way all year long in Nebraska - right?

The ceremony was the next morning at 8. So who would come to an award ceremony at 8? Well, we had a full house and they were amply rewarded by a stunning show biz introduction from the 3rd graders at Beattie Elementary in Lincoln. Not only did they perform an astoundingly alliterative free-verse intro, each letter of Humphrey’s name was punctuated with a chorus of Betty Birney-Betty Birney-Betty Birney-rocks! Life is good, indeed.

I wish I had a “Humphrey’s Our Hero” t-shirt.

I had to give a speech but could not have asked for a more receptive audience and a more patient line of librarians waiting to get books signed. Nebraska is a VERY-VERY-VERY friendly state.

 With Kathy Shultz - she chairs the committee and made the the event seem effortless and entertaining!

After the signings, I attended the Mad Hatter luncheon - lots of un - and then heard the Keynote Speaker, Kent Haruf. I know his Plainsong but now must also read his other books. Every word he said resonated with me and I’m so glad that Kathy and I had time to attend.

Then off to the Lincoln airport, plane change in Denver, returning to the Burbank airport to be greeted by Frank and Desi…. those of you following her health problems: she’s had two radiation treatments and is looking and acting like a puppy. Okay, her leg and front of chest are shaved and covered with magic marker lines like a tattoo but it gives her a warrior look  - I like it. She’s doing so well. (For those who don’t know, my dearest dog has a benign tumor around the spinal cord - two weeks ago she could not stand without falling over but thanks to wonderful care and steroids, she walks pretty well now and has two more weeks of radiation ahead of her.)

I got back home around 8:30 pm (10:30 Nebraska time) and at 7:30 the next morning was waiting in my driveway for my pal, Roberta Lloyd. She’s the librarian at the Stephen S. Wise School in L.A. where I’ll be on October 29. We carpooled to Santa Ana for the Southern California Literacy Council Gala - a great event if you can call anything at 8:30 in the morning a gala! I’d tell you all about it, but thanks to fellow LAYA (you figure that out) Lisa Yee, I don’t have to … just check out her blog (and her very funny books). http://lisayee.livejournal.com/89469.html

By the way, Lisa, I wasn’t standing on the table, I was dancing on the table. You remember Riverdance, don’t you?

 I look a little apprehensive on the first day of school. 

Well, I’m off again,  leaving tomorrow for Texas. Yee-haw!!

Like the readers of my books, my summer vacation is over and I’m heading back to school. School visits, that is. It’s a bittersweet transition for me, as it is for students and teachers alike. On the other hand, three-year old granddaughter Remy started preschool yesterday and LOVED-LOVED-LOVED it.

After a punishing travel schedule from January to June of this year, I was delighted to be home all summer!  My husband went to Massachusetts for a week to visit his sister (and see other family members), I stayed put, working on a new Humphrey book - a different kind of book, by the way.

And while I look forward to the schools, traveling won’t be quite the same. Charges for a checked bag, the airlines canceling my flights and giving me extremely inconvenient substitutes, etc. We all have to suffer.

Still, I’m always energized when I see those young faces and get to talk to teachers and media specialists and poke around school libraries.

I’m flying to Waco tomorrow and will speak at Midway Intermediate School on Friday. Then heading to Houston and The Woodlands. I will speak at The John Cooper School there on Monday but will get to spend the weekend with my cousin Linda and her family. I’ve never been to The Woodlands or to Linda and John’s house so it will be fun.

My cousins: there are eight of us - all girls! I am the second oldest. The order goes like this: Janet, Betty, Joan, Linda, Marilyn, Lynn, Chris and Anne. (Or is Lynn older than Marilyn?) Or are they the same age? (They’re pretty close.) Linda, Marilyn and Chris are sisters, Janet and I are sisters and Joan and Lynn are sisters. Anne is not only the baby but a singleton.

 I saw Anne, who lives in Atlanta, a few months ago when she was in California and cousin Joan as well - I see her the most often because she lives here in the California mountains and teaches elementary school. (Good source material there.) I saw Lynn earlier this year when her family was visiting from Spokane, WA.

A few years ago we were actually all together for a reunion and we laughed because for the first time ever, all eight of us went out without our parents. Grown-ups at last!!

So what is my favorite Louisa May Alcott title: Eight Cousins!

(But Little Women is my favorite of her books, followed by An Old Fashioned Girl.)

 Many of you students, teachers and librarians are already back in school and everybody will be back soon.

I miss that autumn transition now that I’m grown up and so are my kids. But I still feel the shift when my school visit schedule starts up again - and this time I’m hitting the road early - September 5 in Waco, TX and September 8 in The Woodlands, TX. Other stops this fall include Lincoln, NE, Vail, CO., Petaluma, CA, and Calgary, Canada.

 I get a little nostalgic about the start of school. As I wrote about last year, we’d wear our dark plaid cotton dresses, sharpen up a lot of #2 Ticonderogas and get on the bus. When I go back to visit the St. Louis suburb where I grew up, I usually swing by the high school on McKenzie Road. Just down the road is where I went to Junior High and 9th grade. It was once the high school. It’s not a school any more - just an office building - but it looks the same.

 However, I never go back to my elementary school, on the other end of McKenzie Road because it was torn down a long time ago. I guess the fact that my school is torn down makes me seem pretty darn old. The truth is, it was built in 1949 and sold in 1982 - a pretty short life for a school building. It was an office complex for a while but it was eventually demolished.

The school was built just in time to accommodate the first wave of the baby boomers. My class was always the largest class - none that came after could match the huge bubble of kids born right after the war. It was a time of recovery and a time of optimism. Men like my father and many of our neighbors had been lucky enough to survive terrible action in the war. They were determined to build families and careers and put the war behind them. All eyes were forward then.

Just as so many families are disrupted now, my father left behind a wife and two year old daughter to go to war. My mother and sister Janet rented out our house and moved in with my grandparents and aunt in the city. Imagine the joy when Dad returned home and they moved back to their own house. And then of course the best possible thing happened: I was born!

Dad, Janet, Mom - trying to put on a brave face

Mom, Janet, Grandma and me

My sister was in the first class at Reavis School and I followed a few years later. A year after Reavis opened, six rooms were added. A few years later - my second year there - a large addition was put on.

The picture of Reavis (top of page) looks odd to me because of that door on the right. I know what that room was - it was a beautiful, large classroom with big windows and even a stage. That door must lead out from it. But I never saw Reavis from this point of view. I always approached from the other side, left of this picture. If I were in a car or on the bus, we’d turn in the driveway to the left of the school. Sometimes Janet and I walked to school, taking a shortcut that brought us up behind the school, alongside the playing fields. I remember those walks when I was 6 and 7 and I can recall the route in my mind. It was a little over a mile. We also walked to the Bookmobile, next to Affton Pharmacy.

A few years back, my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Bernice Hahn, was living in the same retirement community as my father. I went up to her apartment one afternoon to visit with her - she was a lovely person and I enjoyed my year in her classroom. She said that Reavis was rather shoddily built. In fourth grade, we were in a basement classroom in the new addition. She said that room had a lot of problems. The heat was in the floor, and if a crayon dropped, it melted. It didn’t bother me at all - I had a great year and a great time at good old Reavis School.

     Whew, I didn’t really intend to take a vacation from the blog but things have been quiet and I’ve been trying to make the most of it by WRITING-WRITING-WRITING. In just three weeks, the traveling begins again with a trip to Waco and The Woodlands, TX (and a chance to visit my cousin and her family). And we’re off!

Last weekend, granddaughter Remy (and family) came for dinner. I really am lazy this summer - we ordered out. Dinner was over and the grownups were still lingering around the dining table - our family’s favorite place to talk - but Remy went into the living room to play with a few ragtag toys I have left over from Walshe’s childhood. (My son, now 23.) There’s a Coca-Cola Polar Bear, a monkey from Camp Tumbleweed, where my son was a camper and later a counselor, another monkey that was a gift from my parents - kids love it because it waves its tail while its mouth moves and it chatters … and then there are the hamster and frog puppets that represent Humphrey and Og from the Humphrey series.

 I went in to see what was happening and Remy told me the distressing news: “They’re all sad.”

“What should we do to make them feel better?” I asked.

She thought they should go to bed.

So we found a throw and tucked them in together on the couch. Soon, according to Remy, they were feeling much better! And hopefully, our family sing-along around the piano helped cheer them up. I left them there all night and I can assure you, in the morning they were completely happy again.

I love children’s play. I guess that’s why I write for children. Next time I’m sad, I guess I’ll just go to bed … and hopefully wake up feeling a lot better.

New thought:

I’ve often told people that we rarely have lightning and thunder in Southern California. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen lightning in the 25-plus years I’ve lived here.

Last night, I got up around 4 (bathroom break - or is that Too Much Information?) and definitely saw lightning. I found this so unbelievable (and there was no thunder), I opened the curtains to watch and the sky was continually lit with what had to be lightning. I went back to bed and forgot about it until I heard the news today: there was a highly unusual lightning storm last night and there were over 400 strikes. At least I wasn’t dreaming.

What a lovely little lightshow, thanks to Mother Nature.

 Sometimes I feel like a little hamster spinning on my wheel, especially when I’m working on three Humphrey books at the same time. Which means I have been: writing a new Humphrey book while also:

- finishing the FINAL-FINAL-FINAL copy editing on Adventure According to Humphrey (coming out in hardcover in the US in February)

- writing the Reader’s Guide and activities for According to Humphrey (coming out in paperback in the US in January)

- and making the LAST-LAST-LAST little tweaks on Surprises According to Humphrey UK (coming to the UK this October)

- plus October is the month when the UK audio version of Friendship According to Humphrey, read by Greg Proops (see previous blogs) is released.

I can now reveal the UK Surprises cover (the purple one on top) and you can compare it to the US cover. I love them both! Humphrey’s fear of aliens and his encounter with the cat are both equally important in the book. But because the aliens may not be real, the UK designer made it a drawing - very clever.

If I could change one thing about myself, I would choose to be able to draw. My dad was a talented amateur artist (and an all-round creative person), my stepdaughters Anna and Becca are both successful professional artists/designers and my late brother-in-law Leon deLeeuw was likewise a very fine artist and art professor. Maybe we just didn’t need another artist in the family! I also tend to have friends who are artists. Mitch, Anne, Cynthia, Davis, to name a few.

Maybe it’s time for Humphrey to express his inner artist!

  READ is the current campaign for the American Library Association. But before I talk about my close encounter with a massive number of librarians, I have a question for you. 

Did you ever see the musical, Bells Are Ringing? It was a Broadway play and then a movie starring Judy Holliday (who left us far too early). There’s a number in it called “Drop That Name” and while many of the names in the song might be obscure to younger viewers, it’s extremely clever. I love blogs but I have to admit, a lot of blogging consists of dropping names and when I do it, I feel guilty.  Nevertheless, be forewarned: names will be dropped here, but you’d be amazed at what I’m leaving out! And I didn’t take pictures of myself with people because I just loved talking to them and sometimes the camera gets in the way. But the names I’m dropping are all wonderful people and many writers whose work you may or should know.

I went the ALA conference on Saturday and Sunday - my first! I really haven’t been in the book biz that long, not in comparison to my years in advertising and television. The ALA is the American Library Association and this year their huge, gala conference was in my old stomping grounds of Anaheim (I did used to work at Disneyland).

And WOW, it’s an awesome experience, roaming aisle after aisle of exhibits - not just publishers, but also people who make videos and die-cutting machines and library shelves, library benches, desks, and statues, magazines for libraries, magazines about libraries - it goes on and on! On Saturday, I just went to get my badge, get the lay of the land and also support my LAYA friends. That stands for Los Angeles Young Adult writers, a rather loose (in every way) group of local writers. Yes, folks, I went to Layapalooza!

Checking in went well because standing in back of me in line to check in were Alexis O’Neill and Joan Bransfield Graham, two other SoCal writers. (SoCal is Southern California - don’t you love the acronyms so far?) Alexis writes delectable picture books and Joan writes music-to-the-ear poetry books for young children. We had a few quibbles with the powers that be with bags and maps, etc. but Joan straightened it all out. Then, I was off to roam.

I visited the Penguin exhibit (they were hosting me for my signing on Sunday). And I dropped by the Simon and Schuster booth where I learned, to my delight, that my Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, was winging her way to Anaheim as we spoke. I ran into librarian Tracie Carignan - I had been at her library in Riverside. CA earlier in the year where she hosted me at her library and several Jurupa Unified Schools. She just sent me a GREAT poster of me with the four Seven Wonders essay contest winners which I now have framed on my wall. (See above) By chance, they were all handsome boys, and the five of us had a fabulous dinner together.

Eventually, I made it to the Layapalooza - a game show event that I didn’t participate in because I wasn’t around for the many planning and rehearsal sessions. But I volunteered myself as official photographer. I’m so glad I did - it was definitely entertaining, and the participants in the game show ended up being the likes of authors Neal Shusterman and Nancy Werlin and editor Arthur A. Levine, who has his own imprint at Scholastic and is now known as the editor who brought Harry Potter to America.

  LAYAS Amy Goldman Koss and Lisa Yee greet their adoring ALA fans!

And I got to see Caitlyn, which is always a delight.

I also cruised by to chat with Newbery winner, Susan Patron (The Higher Power of Lucky). We both had the good fortune to have Matt Phelan illustrate our books. In fact, The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs was Matt’s first book but his career took off immediately with good reason.

On Sunday, I arrived for my morning signing, which went very well. It’s GREAT-GREAT-GREAT to meet Humphrey’s varied fans. I also got to spend some quality time with Nancy Paulsen, publisher and president of Putnam’s Children’s Books.  Susan Kochan, Humphrey’s editor, wasn’t able to be there, but luckily, I was just with her in New Jersey for the awarding of the prize for the Humphrey Drawing Contest and it was a genuine pleasure to see Nancy again. Especially since she graduated from B.C. (Boston College) as did my son.

I also got to chat with the Penguin Young Reader’s Marketing Team, many of whom I met (and wined and dined with) at the Texas Library Association conference in April. And I met people from Penguin I’ve never met but have always wanted to. Definitely invigorating.

 I also ran into another of my VFWs (Very Favorite Writers) - Hope Anita Smith - a multi-talented writer and artist. Check out her website at http://hopeanitasmith.com. Twice. Okay three times we ran into each other.  Once she was with YA writer Marlene Perez, whom I’d had some chat group contact in the past. Loved our in-person chat much more!

So now, I have new writing energy … and boy do I need it!

It is 11:00 and almost 100 degrees. The temperature on our patio was 104 yesterday. Thank goodness that a week ago, the weather was absolutely perfect for celebrating the grand occasion of our granddaughter’s 3rd birthday! I’m not sure how many adults and kids there were - maybe 40? 50?

Remy’s mom and dad supplied the entertainment including a long, low table with little chairs and tons of materials for crafts which was very popular. And they hired a “bubble lady” who did all kinds of wonderful things with wading pools and bubbles. There was some real science thrown in, and bubbles of all shapes and sizes. The high point (for the adults) was seeing the kids put inside giant bubbles. Not that many opted to try it but I’m glad Remy did. She’s the girl in the bubble, above. From the kids’ point of view, I think the most popular event was getting to make their own big bubbles from a series of wading pools.

It was a great tryout for the new door to my office. (I have to get a picture to replace the one on the home page.) The little house is a real attraction for three year-olds. One boy called it “The library,” which it looks like with its book-lined walls.  It took awhile to wash off the chocolate and strawberry handprints on the door, way down low but I didn’t mind.

 Today I’m staying in my air-conditioned office and writing. Desi the dog is in here, too. I’m trying to limit her time outside, though she prefers to be outside.

And if it gets any hotter, I might just crawl into a great big bubble of my own!

School is over for the summer … at least for me! My last school visit was a week ago at the Third Street School in Los Angeles. On my way home, I recalled the little saying we chanted on the last day of school:

School’s out, school’s out,

Teacher let the mules out!

No more classes, no more books,

No more teacher’s dirty looks!!!

The end of school always included a district wide school parade, followed by a day at the wonderful old Forest Park Highlands amusement park. The memories are flooding in so I’ll have to do a separate post on the Highlands. The district took it over for the day. You could buy food there or bring picnics. And if your family wasn’t going, bus transportation was supplied. It was a rip-roaring close to the school year. The Highlands are long gone and so is Reavis School.

I loved school but I loved summer, too. More time for reading, bike-riding, swimming, jumping rope, playing hopscotch, playing board and card games and building imaginary worlds.  (I had a lot of those.) But I was always glad to go back to school in the fall because I missed my friends and I did like school.

 Even though I have plenty of writing to do this summer, I hope to get more reading done and enjoy working in my new kitchen.

Carole Koneff, the librarian at Third Street Elementary, wrote an epic poem that’s a lot better than the one about the mules. What a lovely introduction!

The Seven Wonders of the World inspired a lovely book

And lots of us decided to take a closer look

About a boy named Eben who went upon a quest

To find some local wonders and try to pass a test.

His dad threw down the gauntlet and in the space of just a week,

He had to decide the things that he would seek.

He had to scour the neighborhood and overcome some fears,

And on the way must endure the teasing of his peers.

And as he delved a little further and stuck to the task,

The wonders started happening, and then came thick and fast.

A doll that saved a person, a bookcase in the rain

A saw that scared the locusts, a table helping pain

A ship inside a bottle, a blind woman’s magic loom

A perfect miniature of the town that washed away the gloom

This book of seven wonders made us smile and want to cheer

And we are very happy that Betty Birney’s here

To talk to us of Eben and delightful Humphrey, too

And now I am just thrilled to introduce her to you!

It wasn’t a tour, exactly, but it was a mystery - a big question mark that’s been on my calendar for months. And once the mystery was solved, it turned out to be a magical trip after all.

Last year, the Penguin marketing team came up with the idea of a Humphrey Drawing Contest. Last week, after over a thousand entries were looked at, a smaller group (about 15) were sent to me and after a lot of long, hard thought, we had a winner.

Since the grand prize was having me come to the winner’s school to speak (as well as free books for the entire class and a gift certificate), I didn’t want to know where each entry was from. After a rather strenuous travel year (away from home 8 weeks in various bits and pieces), I probably would have selected Los Angeles! So where was I going? Nebraska? North Carolina? Alabama? All were in the finalists.  But it was a little north of Alabama because the winner was (fanfare here):

Richard Roberts, Cliffwood Elementary School, Cliffwood, New Jersey!

(I ended up having to travel coast-to-coast after all. But I didn’t really mind)

 I have to say, Richard’s teacher, Susan Kyvelos, librarian, Susan Rardin (yes, there were lots of Susans there), the principal  (whose name has escaped me even though she is the Most Important Person at Cliffwood Elementary) and the whole staff at Cliffwood pulled out all the stops! The library was turned into Humphreyville with all the streets listed in TROUBLE ACCORDING TO HUMPHREY. There are so many talented artists at Cliffwood - I loved all the big drawings of the characters from the books.  Great food, the newspaper there to take photos, and Richard’s enthusiastic parents and grandmothers were on hand as well.

So, how did we determine the winner? It was tough, I have to tell you. Once the finalists were chosen, I looked and looked and looked and my eyes kept going back to Richard’s. While many entries illustrated the scene where Humphrey hits Clem with the rubber band - and they were all very cute - his drawing showed an exact moment in the book and it was action packed. The rubber band has just that second hit Clem’s nose. Read the chapter and you’ll see Richard captured it all with verve and imagination. When I talked to him about it, Richard said that he had done a couple of drawings before it but wasn’t quite satisfied. That’s so much like writing, when I rewrite and rewrite and rewrite some more. And it’s always worth it.

 I like the little cartoon bubbles. Fanny is saying “Blub,” Humphrey is saying “Take this, Beast” and Clem says “Ouch!” There’s the rubber band mid-air, too!

Still it was a tough decision! Especially since Sasha Quattlebaum from Omaha, NE had a wonderfully imaginative take on Aldo and the hallways of Longfellow School at night. And Mary Beth Judge from Waxhaw, NC also captured a colorful scene between Aldo and Humphrey. They both received First Prize Awards.  Honorable Mentions went to Glen Nolte of Anniston, AL, a truly talented artist, and Lexi Rose Reynolds, also of Waxhaw - I loved Clem’s big nose as seen through Humphrey’s eyes. There were two other Waxhaw students in the finalists. Rea View Elementary is a very special place.

I’ll try to get those up on my photo gallery soon. They deserve to be looked at.

By the way, Richard’s 9th birthday was the day before I came to his school but I didn’t find that out until later. So Happy Birthday, Richard!