The challenge was to write a poem that challenges a well-known proverb. The neighbors’ chickens this morning made me think of “The grass is always greener on the other side.” Let’s see how that works.

In a just released children’s book, Jack Knight’s Brave Flight by Jill Esbaum, the nonfiction story follows a little-known story of how air mail almost didn’t get into the postal system.

In this poetry month, I return to what may win the prize of “most visited” in my decade of blogging. April 4 is Maya Angelou’s birthday and seems a good time to revisit this blog, first published on June 2, 2014.

For two and a half years, we have lived out here on what we lightheartedly call “The Ranch.” We have watched this one dead tree. With unceasing breezes and winds, we have figured it would lose branches or fall just any time.

Maud Newton begins her book, Ancestor Trouble, with her search for her own heritage. She has heard family tales about the ancestor who married thirteen times and was killed by one of his wives and another who was killed with a hay hook and died in an institution.

The last Dropbox share with a publisher left mixed feelings, predominantly joyful relief preceding a hole in my life. What do I do now?

This post is a bit late for the International Strong Women celebration, but I’ve been thinking about the strong women in my life since the March 8 observance.

Red, White, and Whole by Rajani Larocca won an honor designation for the Newbery Award and a whole string of other honors listed on the website. It deserved every one and then some more.

We had been expecting the call. We had heard from friends and been forewarned with TV alerts that it was likely to come. Still, it was a bit of a surprise when Al answered a local call to hear, “This is your oldest grandson.”

Just out on March first is The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen, advertised as the first-ever monograph on this beloved midcentury husband-and-wife illustration team. I got to read the advance copy furnished by the publisher, Chronicle Chroma, through Net Galley.

During the fall lull in the coronavirus, I found myself on the opposite side of a school pick-up car line from the one I remembered. A lot of things had changed.

Bluebird, by Sharon Cameron, raises questions right from the start. Unless you are a history expert on the period right after World War II, I recommend reading her back matter before starting the book.

I’ll call him Bobby, which might have actually been his name. I can’t use the old cliché to say his family was poor as church mice since I think the mice had several steps advantage up the financial ladder.

Heather Webb sets her book of historical fiction, The Next Ship Home, at the turn of the century in and around Ellis Island. The book is well-researched and true to the times. Two protagonists get almost equal billing.

First of all, nobody put me in charge of ranking sins so I may be way off base with this blog. However, I feel a need to have my say. From all the posts I’ve seen recently about censorship and banning of books, I am not looking at an occasional problem.

Avi begins his book Loyalty with the date of Friday, April 4, 1774, and the sentence, “On this day, my father was murdered because he said a prayer.”

Okay, so you have to wonder a bit about having a day for everything and who came up with this one. The fourth Wednesday in January was designated as Library Shelfie Day for organizations and individuals.

Isabelle Allende begins her novel, Violeta, with Violeta’s letter to Camilo whom she loves “more than anyone in this world.” She promises to tell him her life story that is worthy of a novel, more because of her sins than because of her virtues.

In the children’s book news recently, I saw that the A. A. Milne books became public domain on January 1, 2022. It set me thinking of the pleasure they had brought me and of the shared pleasure they had brought with my own children and with the kindergarteners and second graders I taught.

Forty years ago, as we were winding up our day, we got a phone call from my brother-in-law John. Since we were in Germany and John was in Virginia, phone calls were both expensive and rare.