Kathleen Celebrates Earth Day

I have a full schedule today. As usual reading and writing are front and center, kids and family at the heart. I have a book due to my publisher in a month, so I'll be working on that this morning. Tonight we kick off a new class at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Conveniently enough it's called "Book In a Month," and we've never taught it before. I've never done it before, but I know how I would do it if I had to.

Oh, yeah. I have to. Should be an interesting trial by fire. I'll keep you posted.

Between the writing and the teaching, I'll be paying my regular "Book Nook" visit to my granddaughter's first grade class. Last time we read Library Mouse. The night before we'd made mouse ears for everyone out of pipe cleaners. The story is about a mouse who lives in the library and writes little books, so we also made blank books and handed them out to everyone, just as Library Mouse does at the end of the story. My girls love to make books. (The older one is helping me read. That's the little one looking this way.) That's exactly what I did when I was their age. (Actually a little older. These kids are way ahead of me.) My first fiction featured a girl who solved mysteries with her cat.

Today is Earth Day, so we chose a couple of books about critters. We'll do some masks first, and then we'll let the wild rumpus begin. We're also donating a book to the class library called It's Earth Day. I'm one tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie-at-heart Boomer who never forgets Earth Day. Ah, 1970. The year I graduated college. The year I got married. The year I started teaching two of the three R's. Full circle--back to reading and writing.

A big part of the legacy we bibliophiles give our children and grandchildren is surely born of the books we loved as children. Let's say we're giving a baby shower for a dear friend's first child or grandchild, and guests are to gift the child with 3 wonderful children's books. Which ones will you bring? I'll draw one name from today's comments and offer that person a book from my backlist--winner's choice.

I'm celebrating the birth of a new book baby. Sam Beaudry's due date is April 28, but I see that he's already in stock at Amazon. If you're of a mind to check him out, we'd love it if you'd take our sidebar link (right) to our Amazon shop, Reading In the Fast Lane. The first couple of pages are available on the listing. You can find a few more tidbits on my website. But here's the cover blurb:

Keeping the people of his Rocky Mountain hometown safe is Sheriff Sam Beaudry's top priority. But his quiet life suddenly comes under scrutiny when a young stranger shows up at the door of his mother's store, claiming that Hilda Beaudry is her grandmother.

Maggie Whiteside has never known a man like Sam--the kind a woman and her young son might truly count on. But their budding relationship will be put to the test when his past rides into town on a Greyhound Bus. Now Maggie must decide for herself who Sam really is. As for Sam, how much of his battered heart is he willing to risk?

This book is the first in a trilogy. One Cowboy, One Christmas follows in December.