Betty Birney’s Blog

You can always tell when I’ve been busy writing because I don’t blog much. For some reason, when I’m working on a book, I have to shut other things out.

But continuing with my recent book tour …. After leaving San Francisco, I headed to Minneapolis where I visited Creek Valley Elementary in Edina and Kenny Community School in Minneapolis.  Then my terrific media escort, Tim,  took me to Wild Rumpus Bookstore. There are lots of wonderful books there … and some very interesting tenants.  Cats and chickens roam the bookstore … and living below the horror section are the rats, of course.

A ferret is not a potential friend for Humphrey  

 I have a crush on Spike and his big smile.

 Me with Nicky and Drew of Wild Rumpus, and Tim

Minneapolis was beautiful but I didn’t have much time there as I was off to Chicago that same night. The Arista Hotel in Naperville is very cool and contemporary. The TV in the bathroom mirror was the best perk of the trip. 

      Munhall with Kristin Kaye

I started the next day at Munhall Elementary School (Go, Mustangs!). They were impressed that I wore the school colors. In the afternoon, I met with enthusiastic friends at Elm  School in Burr Ridge. And the icing on the cake was my signing on Friday night at Anderson’s Bookshop in Downers Grove. Kathleen March could not have been more welcoming and I had the best bunch of Humphrey fans show up! They entertained me as much as I did them. The surprise mystery guests turned out to be my editor, Susan Kochan’s, niece and sister! A little later, illustrator Larry Day happened to be at the shop … and he’s also doing a book for Susan right now.  Thanks to my media escort, Mary Jo, for her great driving and patience.

Me with Susan’s niece Katherine and her sister, Joan. 

   With illustrator Larry Day 

  All thanks to Kathleen March of Anderson’s in Downers Grove for an unsqueakably wonderful evening.

And so it was back to L.A. on Saturday … was it real or just a dream? You can’t quite tell when you’re on a book tour!

I’m still recovering from a whirlwind book tour. I’ve always heard writers talk about how you don’t even know what city you’re in. I wouldn’t go that far … but last Wednesday, I did have to ask someone on the plane what day of the week it was!

I got off to an easy start here at home in L.A.. I visited the wonderful Wonderland School, not that far from my house. There was a long break, so my media escort, Diana, took me to a large B&N where I signed books, then on to the Barnhart School in Arcadia.

With librarian Myrtle Keefe at Wonderland School

With Barnhart librarian Alicia Yao in front of the stunning stained glass windows at Santa Anita Church next door.

The enthusiastic southern California students gave me energy to get to my next stop which was: San Francisco! It’s only an hour flight to S.F. from Burbank, but the plane was 1 1/2 hours late arriving. Groan. Great hotel – The Prescott – and my media escort, Brian, arrived the next morning to whisk me off to North Hillsborough Elementary and South Hillsborough Elementary. Both are in – you guessed it – Hillsborough. In the afternoon, I had tea with three world class librarians. I don’t know about them, but I learned a lot!

In Humphrey’s words, Tuesday was a BUSY-BUSY-BUSY day complicated by world-class traffic jams. Still, Brian managed to get me to Walter Hayes in Palo Alto, Gardner Bullis in Los Altos, and St. Joseph’s in Atherton. I wish I could have had more time at each school but it was run in, speak, sign like crazy, race out the door. It wouldn’t have worked at all if the schools hadn’t been well-organized and without the help of wonderful Lisa from Kepler’s Books.  Another dash to the airport and I was off to Minneapolis.

But I did leave at least part of my heart in San Francisco – a beautiful city with beautiful children!

Gardner Bullis School in Los Altos with Jane Sanders

              Last week, I headed down to Laguna for a speaking engagement and ended up on the beach! Thus is life in L.A.  Unfortunately I also ended up smack in the middle of the blackout with no traffic lights working and major traffic jams. But I was with my Aunt Katie and that made it so much better. The traffic just gave us more time to catch up.

I’m heading out of Southern California on a book tour tomorrow, sponsored by my publishers, Penguin. I actually start the “tour” here in L.A., visiting two schools and signing books. Then I hop a plane for San Francisco for two nights and more schools. Next stop: Minneapolis where I’ll spend less than 24 hours. I’ll end the trip in Chicago where I’ll have a public event:

Anderson’s Bookshop, Downers’ Grove, Friday, September 16 at 7 PM! I’m very excited about visiting this fabulous indy bookstore. Illinois readers have been big fans of Humphrey and The World According to Humphrey is currently on the state’s Bluestem Award list.  So y’all come!

I actually lived in Chicago for seven months too many years ago to mention. A fun, fun city. It has a beach, too.

Here’s the new Hungarian cover for Friendship According to Humphrey. Strange color palette, I know. But it’s not as frightening as the cover for book 1. However, little Spuri continues to please in Hungary.

I’ve been busy writing and find that when I’m deep in a story, I just want to do that and let the blogging go by the wayside a little. A few new things:

-There’s an interview with me currently up on Brittney Breakey’s terrific Author’s Turf website. http://authorturf.com/

-I’ll be hanging around at the SCBWI Conference (Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators)in L.A. starting next Friday. If you want to say hi, let me know.
The conference is completely sold out but if you want to write children’s books, this is the place to start. http://scbwi.org. The organization has been invaluable to me and to so many other published authors I know.

-I’m now tweeting as bettygbirney.

-You can friend me on Facebook as well.

Now back to work!

 Original cover               Current cover

It was January, 2003 and I was on (groan) jury duty. It was a messy, confusing (though absolutely fascinating) trial that was supposed to last 9 days and went on for over 3 weeks. Since Humphrey has a family audience, I’m not going into the details of the crimes.

We had a great jury. All but three had college degrees and a number of them had advanced degrees. We had a teacher, a computer expert, a professor, a social worker, and a high end chef. And a children’s book writer – me. One of the frustrations of jury duty is that you spend so much time sitting in the jury room and so little time in the courtroom hearing testimony. Twelve people with nothing in common except the trial – and that’s the one thing you can’t discuss. The personable chef was popular because another thing we all have in common is food. Eleven of the 12 of us started eating together daily, exploring areas of downtown we didn’t know, taking walks.

One day, we came into the jury room for a break and I called my husband on my cell. He said to call my agent, Nancy Gallt, right away, which I did. She told me that Susan Kochan of Putnam’s had made an offer on The World According to Humphrey. I didn’t know then how lucky I was to have Susan choose it because she’s the perfect editor for Humphrey. Naturally, I started jumping up and down – literally jumping for joy. When the call was over, my fellow jurors were dying to know what happened and they were as excited as I was. I celebrated my first sale of a middle grade with the kindness of strangers.

As we drew closer to the end of the trial, the testimony got even murkier. A mute person testified. We had a rebuttable witness to prove another witness was lying. We had a witness arrested outside the courtroom and a noisy, scary inmate fight in the elevator outside the courtroom. Our deputy ran out with gun drawn. We had a witness heartbreakingly sobbing, long-winded DNA experts, lots and lots of police – it happened that the victim was the sister of a police officer. When we finally started deliberations, it turned out my fellow jurors were as confused as I was. We really worked hard for 2 1/2 days under intense pressure to come to a conclusion because one of the 12 (the one who didn’t go to lunch with us, a stockbroker) was going to “walk” as he had an out of town wedding. That would have meant starting deliberations all over again with the remaining alternate; the other alternate had been dismissed.

We ended up with a hung jury on the most major charge. We all agreed  about what the accused had done but a technicality in the way the law was written became a point of contention. We read that law over and over. The social worker broke down in tears when we knew we were hung. “But he’s soooo guilty,” she wailed.

Still, I respected the people who couldn’t say “beyond a reasonable doubt” because of the wording of the law. (Think Casey Anthony.) We found him guilty on the other three felony counts which sent him to jail for a number of years, probably ruined his life, broke his family’s heart, etc. But he had done those things and none of us had the slightest doubt because he had admitted it on tape. (Admitted it because he didn’t think what he did was wrong. We strongly disagreed.) The prosecution was thrilled that we found him guilty as they knew it was a complicated trial. The family of the victim and the police detectives involved thanked us profusely.

I still think about them all: the jurors, the judge, the family of the victim, the family of the accused.

But I was thrilled to go home  -  a juror no more. I was now a middle grade novelist!

Three months later, at a party, I learned that Nancy had sold The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs to Caitlyn Dlouhy of Atheneum. It was a very good year.