A Week Full of Surprises

Highlights from this week include: My 10 year old nephew calling me up from out of state to tell me he'd seen an ad on Nickelodeon for the upcoming Shredderman movie, Shredderman Rules. I knew the movie had been shown at Tribeca and other film festivals, but this was a first-sighting of soon-to-be-aired evidence, courtesy of my shreddin' nephew! My mother--troublesome eyes and all--gobbling up the newly released Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things and sharing a laugh with me over the book's "Phony Forest" and nasty, biting, stinging creatures. Nothing like shared experiences (real-life backpacking amidst nasty, biting, stinging creatures)to help you share a laugh. A surprise birthday party for a dear friend. How nice it is to see someone so happy. E-mails to the Exercise the Right to Read box from teachers and librarians all around the country. They're excited! They're participating! They're thankful. (And I'm so thankful to hear from them!) But best of all...I received an e-mail from South Africa and another from Botswana. South Africa? Botswana? They were both from teachers wanting to know if their schools could participate in the fundraiser. I work with words, but this touched me in a way I can't find the words to describe.