Hi, Mom!

The lack of comments my blog entries seem to receive have convinced me that I am blogging for an audience of one: my mom. So, this entry goes out to her.

Hi, Mom.

Yeah, Franny's spots are all gone. Or rather, they are all dried up, so the quarrantine has finally been lifted. It kills me that back in the dark ages when I had chicken pox I had to get a HUGE penecillin shot in my behind (yeowch!) and now they know it is a virus so they do NOTHING to treat it.

I went pumpkin picking with Bougie's preschool class yesterday. I was assigned to watch the Bou and a little boy named Eric. While Bougie ran amok in the pumpkin patch, Eric calmly rejected every pumpkin I steered him toward as "too big." When he dismissed one the size of a baseball, I finally had an idea. I picked a tiny dark green ping-pong ball sized nub off a vine and presented it to him. He was thrilled and proudly carried it the rest of the trip. I took some truly hysterical photos of him with his Lilliputan prize, but it occurs to me that I should probably check with his parents before posting them on the internet.

Moral of this story is: listen to kids. Not all kids want their pumpkins to be big OR orange. OK, most kids do, but personally I prefer the kids who dare to say "Hey, make mine puny and green!" Meanwhile, in a related story, my own kids are trying their darnedest to conform and thereby buck the family tradition of non-conformity.

Their cause? Store-bought Halloween costumes.

Which is another entry unto itself.

Who knows? Maybe someone other than my mom will read it.

Day Three

Day Three here at Pox central.

Number of spots on Franny... 503... no, make that 504.

Number of spots on Bougie... none.

My kind and brave friend Emily volunteered her son Eli to be a guinea pig, so he came over for a playdate today. He's been vaccinated, so it wasn't exactly high risk behavior. But, as Franny's case has proven, vaccines can be imperfect. So, we shall see.

Yesterday, I did an author visit at the Sheridan School, here in North-by-Northwest Washington, DC. I met with a very eager and peppy audience of 2nd and 3rd graders, who greeted me with praise about my appearance ("You're pretty! I love your boots!") and my books ("I love your books!"). These love-ly and love-ing kiddos were old pros at author visits (they informed me, "We're meeting Graeme Base tomorrow") and did a super job asking great questions I frequently hear ("Where do you get your ideas?") as well as some I've never heard before ("If you combined Ninety-Three In My Family with Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early, what would it become?").

I always love talking with kids. So much so that today I sound like there's a blue speckled frog (or two... or eight!) in my throat. Good thing I'm staying inside with my pox-y pal, drinking tea and playing board games and theoretically baking a carrot cake if I finish this entry.

Yum, cake! Bye!

It's a Chicken Thing, You Wouldn't Understand

Well, okay, you might. Has YOUR child had the chicken pox?

The WHAT pox?

Yes, ha ha. The Chicken Writer has come beak to beak with the one kind of chicken thing she doesn't really want to, um, embrace. Chicken Pox. As in red spots, endless scratching, and days and days holed up at home in chicken quarantine land (hmm... new book idea? Chicken Quarantine Is Really... Oh, who am I kidding!?).

The good news (for all of the 93 or so kiddos who came to Politics and Prose this morning to see me read - and hear me sing - Ninety-Three In My Family) is that we noticed the fever at 4 a.m. and the spots at 8, and we were prudent enough (for once) to keep Franny home. Even though it meant missing her class' field trip to see Mommy in action. Truth be told, had it not been for the spots-and-fever combo, I would have thought she was faking to avoid the embarrassment of Mommy's silly hats and book-related antics (she practically begged me not to do a fake sneeze, as I often do, at a key point in the narrative). But, as it happened, there was indeed a pox on her. And maybe on her little sister... tune in soon!

The bad news is, this past week she was a regular Typhoid Mary, doing all her usual active activities (gymnastics, ballet, three parties, chorus, afterschool and, of course, school). And the other bad news is that pretty much all of our standard destinations (park, library, zoo) are not options, so I may just have to break down and install those wall-climber hand holds on the living room walls.

S'WONDERful

I just got back from a WONDERful weekend in NYC. The cap's represent the fact that part of what made it so very divine was that I read and signed books at Books of Wonder, which is one of my favorite places on the planet. I mean, what could be better? Incredible selection, big browsing space, great displays, knowledgable staff and, if that's not enough, cupcakes.

PLUS I got to rub elbows with such greats - old and new - as:

• Jim Trelease (who put down my child's school the minute he met me, but what the hey)
• Amy Schwartz (A TEENY TINY BABY, BEA AND MR. JONES, and many more)
• Sergio Ruzzier (THE ROOM OF WONDERS, plus illustrations for Emily Jenkins' spot-on & super-funny LOVE YOU WHEN YOU WHINE)
• David Gavril (shout out to my fellow Hampshire alum! and author/ill. of PENELOPE NUTHATCH AND THE BIG SURPRISE)
• Leonard Marcus (I cannot put his DEAR GENIUS down! Plus now I need WAYS OF TELLING real bad!!) and
• K.J. Dell'Antonia (shout out to my fellow alum of the Manhattan Criminal Courts - no, that does not mean that KJ and I did time together, though I guess we kind of did, in a manner of speaking - and big props for puttin CHICKEN BEDTIME IS REALLY EARLY in READING WITH BABIES TODDLERS AND TWOS without realizing we knew each other from our former lives!). I also got to meet
• Emily Jenkins, whose TOYS GO OUT is emerging as her finest work of many fine works. Plus she was really nice, which always works for me.

Other highlights of my visit were mostly culinary: soup dumplings (yes, I'm old and out of it, okay? I eat foods that were fads a decade ago and I say things like "shout out" which no one says anymore), cupcakes, and excellent popcorn at Film Forum (where I'd sit through pretty much any movie for the popcorn).

Plus I got to see many dear family members and friends, including my charming hostess, the lovely Ms. Kenna Kay. Some old friends came and surprised me at my readings (and brought kids I've heard about but never had the pleasure of meeting), which was extra nice! And my own kids stayed home. Which can be a nice thing too (absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that).

One last bit of news: When I got home, I learned that Neal Pollack's new website (for which I've been asked to contribute a column) will be up and running soon! The website is offsprung.com and the working title for my column is Pajamazon. As in, "if you want to hear bedtime stories, get yer freaking pajamazon!"

It will be a column about kids and kids' books and it will include the contributions of my own darling kids, assuming they don't lose all their stories goofing around when they are supposed to be getting ready for bed.

NINETY-THREE!!!

Check it out!!!
It's my new book NINETY-THREE IN MY FAMILY!
And it's finally out!

And GUESS WHAT? It’s a Book Sense Autumn 2006 Pick! Which means your friendly neighborhood bookseller (and your friendly neighborhood internet superstore a.k.a. http://www.amazon.com/ ) might actually have it in stock. Let your feet or fingers do the walking and find out. Books make excellent presents for kids (and classrooms!) and I am happy to personally sign any book that I wrote.
(I mention this because recently I was asked to sign a Corduroy book. I had to politely decline since, technically, I’m not Don Freeman).

And here’s some MORE cool news: I’m doing readings this fall in New York City, Boston, Washington, DC, Baltimore and beyond. Scroll down to the bottom of this e-mail to check dates – it would be really wonderful to see friends and friends of friends, so please help me spread the word! Come hear me read the new book and check out my new non-chicken hat.

Speaking of spreading the word, I want to say THANKS to all of you for championing my first book, CHICKEN BEDTIME IS REALLY EARLY. Everything you’ve done - coming to readings, asking for the book at bookstores and libraries across the country (and in many foreign countries!), sharing it with your friends and families, writing reviews of it (on http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.bn.com/) – has meant the world to me. The little chicken book that could is now in its fifth printing, thanks in large part to your tireless grassroots support. So please keep up the good work! Write an on-line review, tell your local library or newspaper about the book, read it aloud on public transportation, carry it in your bag wherever you go (oh, wait, that’s my job)… every little bit helps, really!

I hope you enjoy NINETY-THREE IN MY FAMILY. I must confess that I’m hugely pleased with how the book came out. Illustrator Mike Lester (of A IS FOR SALAD fame) channeled this book’s unique spirit in much the same way George Bates did CHICKEN BEDTIME's. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

All the best,

Erica
erica@ericaperl.com
http://www.ericaperl.com/

Erica’s Not Quite Ninety-Three Fall Book Tour Dates (But, Hey, Who’s Counting?):
Saturday, September 16, 12-2 pm at Books of Wonder (18 W. 18th St. NYC) & 3-4 pm at the Strand Bookstore (Broadway & 12th St. NYC)

Wednesday, September 27, 11 am at Aladdin’s Lamp (Arlington, VA)

Sunday, October 1, 3:30 pm at the Baltimore Book Festival

Tuesday, October 3, 10:30 am at Politics and Prose (Washington, DC)

Saturday, October 14, 10:30 am at Aladdin’s Lamp (Arlington, VA)

Saturday, October 28, 2 pm at the Cleveland Park Library (Washington, DC)

Saturday, November 4, at Wellesley Booksmith (Wellesley, MA)

Saturday, November 18, at the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Annual Conference (Nashville, TN)