Thursday, November 30, 2006

Kirkus lists their 50 best children's books of 2006

And guess who wrote 4% of the books on the list? Me, thats right. Me. Both Once Upon a Banana and The American Story are on the list. And since it's alphabetical, they are #2 and #3 (right behind Tobin Anderson at #1).
"This comprehensive compendium is both a tremendous resource and a gift book for the ages," it says of The American Story. And "urban ruckus" and "visual romp" are some of the descriptions of Once Upon a Banana.

Also the Deseret (Utah) News lists Once Upon a Banana in its gift-giving list of children's titles for the season. "A banana peel causes a whole town to fall apart." Evidently we really loosed the hounds of anarchy with this book.

Q. Jennifer, how do you feel about these two books ending up on all these lists?
A. Oh, shucks, I'm just happy folks are reading them. [Subtext: Yippee!] Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

"La Bloga" blog of Chicano Literature reviews The American Story

"I’m recommending it to La Bloga readers. No, it’s not Chicano history, it’s not Mexica or even by a Chicano writer; but it’s an amazingly well written book and this is our history too."

Wow! Thanks very much, La Bloga! Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

San Antonio bookstores recommend Once Upon a Banana in holiday guide

"Will the madness ever end?" reads their review. Madness and insanity seem to be recurring themes in the reviews of this book. Should I be worried? Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Worcester Magazine Gift Guide...

... recommends The American Story. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Anniston Star reviews Once Upon a Banana

Seeming to borrow heavily from the Fuse # 8 review... And where is Anniston, anyway? Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

"Zaniness ensues..."

From the Times Union (Albany, New York). Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

"It takes a lot of stories to compile The American Story" says the San Diego Union Tribune

Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Monday, November 27, 2006

November quickly coming to a close

This teacher has some suggestions for using The American Story with students. TAS is now in the OC - Orange County Register gift guide, that is.

This is all the daily obsessive scavenging of the internet has yielded.

On the Christmas decorating front, I can tell you that I made great progress over the Thanksgiving weekend. @#$&*! I wish I had my camera so I could show you all the snow I have now floating down from the dining room ceiling. It's magical. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Reading Rockets Holiday Gift Guide...

... recommends Once Upon a Banana. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Friday, November 24, 2006

The American Story in Columbus Parent Magazine

Some feature called "Mom Style" which presumes that dads aren't interested in buying books for their kids. I think it might presume that. I'm just saying. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Thursday, November 23, 2006

The Banana reaches Abilene, Kansas

The Abilene Reporter News calls Once Upon a Banana "part 'Curious George', part Marx Brothers." Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Interview on Prairie Public Radio

I did this interview yesterday afternoon. The host kept calling the book "100 True Tales from American History: The American Story," and it never really seemed like the right time to set him straight. Oh well. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The American Story in San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide

"Goodies Between Covers" is how they style their book buying recommendations. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

News roundup

Okay, let's see, the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser says The American Story is a "keeper." This newspaper serves the "heartland" of New York, although I'm not entirely sure what that might consist of. I live in New York and I've never heard of any part of it being called the heartland. Wherever it is, they like The American Story, too. The book has been holding pretty steadily at under 1,000 on Amazon.com. Of course the problem with tracking sales rank is that you don't know how many books that number actually represents. In addition to sales rank I'd love to see "books sold today." Of course that would just be one more thing for me to obsess over.

On the house tour decorating front, I spent much of yesterday crumbling white styrofoam and mixing it with glue to make piles of snow. Right now these piles of snow are curing in front of the gas fire in my breakfast room. They look surprisingly realistic. The basic idea is to fill the house with ice, frost and snow. And polar bears. No santas. No nutcrackers. No bows. No no no. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Monday, November 20, 2006

The American Story in the SIBA holiday catalog

Everywhere I have been this fall, booksellers have been saying "this is going to be our big holiday book." Okay, holiday shopping officially begins this week. Booksellers, start your engines... Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Let the holiday decorating begin!

Last year, the director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation asked me if I'd like to be on the "Candlelight House Tour" that the foundation runs every early December as a fund raising event. I declined, saying "please ask next year."

Well, she did.

Why, given everything on my plate this autumn, I agreed to do this, I'm not sure. But I did. Yesterday I spent forty-five minutes or so at A.C. Moore with the masses of other people running roughshod over Thanksgiving and plunging directly into Santas and garland. I'm working on an indoor ice effect and I wanted to get something to frost over my windows. There are several commercial "frost" products in cans, and reading the labels absolutely gave me the creeps. I'm sure I've read those chemical names in descriptions of toxic industrial waste stories. My front windows go right to the floor, perfect for my dachshunds to watch the comings and goings of criminals and aggressors on the sidewalk, and I didn't want them pressing their sharp little noses into something sure to kill them.

So I decided to try stenciling with regular old Elmer's glue. It's water washable, non-toxic, peels off glass, and cheap. After a couple of hours of experimentation, I perfected my technique: wipe on a film of glue, and then pat snow glitter into it while it's wet. The stenciling isn't that effective, but just painting with the glue is. All fall I have been stockpiling acryclic icicles and snowflakes and polar bears, and as soon as Thanksgiving is behind me I will be plugging in the glue gun, unreeling invisible monofilament, and getting to serious work.

WHERE ARE THE PICTURES? you ask. My camera is in the hospital with nonretractinglensitis. I'll post pictures as soon as I can. Stay tuned.

By the way, that trip to Cleveland was my LAST trip of 2006 for work. I still have the Ethiopia trip next month, but no more trade shows, conventions, conferences, etc. Ya-freakin'-hoo. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Conference in Cleveland at the Cuyahoga Library

This trip started very badly. Very badly. Terrible weather on the East Coast on Thursday, including fatal tornadoes in North Carolina, wreaked havoc on airline travel. Flights connecting through Philadelphia were totally messed up. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that I finally reached Cleveland around 11:15 p.m., approximately 12 hours after leaving home. I probably could have driven there in about that time.

The next day started early (6:00 a.m.) wake up and then off to the public library for a day-long symposium.

First up were author/illustrator Marla Frazee and her editor, Allyn Johnston, who is the editor-in-chief at Harcourt Children's. Over the years they have formed a close personal relationship which t serves their working relationship very well. Click on the "studio" button on Marla's site and see the photographs of her studio. Adorable! I wish I had a little cottage in the back yard. Actually I do, in a way, but it's full of gardening equipment.

Next up was Margaret Peterson Haddix, adored by middle school readers. One funny anecdote was about a friend of one of her children coming into her house and stopping dead in front of the microwave to say, "this is the microwave of a famous author!" She doesn't have a website, but her daughter is trying to lure her into creating a MySpace page. What's a teen author to do?

After lunch I spoke, and then it was Walter Wick's turn. He showed pictures of his amazing photographs. Some of the most fascinating images were the ones that showed the inner workings and mechanics of the pictures -- how he makes things appear to float in space, etc. Go to his website and check out the video of his balloon popper.



Then it was off to the airport, back through Philadelphia (no bad weather) and finally home after midnight. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Interiew on Kids Bookshelf

Neither very long, nor anthing you haven't heard me say before.

Later today I'll write up my trip to Cleveland, but first I have to stack a half-cord of firewood. Why? Because that's just what authors do. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Tobin Anderson wins National Book Award for Young People's Literature

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party is an astonishing book. And it's only volume I. Tobin has been working on this opus for years. I'm not sure when volune II is due to be published, but stay tuned. It will undoubtedly be gripping.

Congratulations, Tobin! Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Parents' Choice Foundation..

... has named The American Story a 2006 Parents' Gold Choice Winner.

That's nice, don't you think? Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Headed to Cleveland tomorrow for this conference

Among the other speakers is Walter Wick, the photographer of the I Spy books. Very much looking forward to his presentation. How does he make those amazing photos? Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Banana is like Perils of Pauline, says Chicago Tribune

I suspect we are rapidly running out of people who understand what the Perils of Pauline were, but never mind. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Third Starred Review for Once Upon a Banana -- this time in School Library Journal

ONCE UPON A BANANA

By Jennifer Armstrong; illustrated by David Small

(Paula Wiseman/S&SBFYR; IBSN 0689842511; October 2006; fall catalog page 28)

"In this hilarious book, a monkey’s craving for a banana turns the streets of a busy city upside down. The mostly wordless tale is told through rhyming street signs and delightfully detailed watercolor paintings. On the first spread, a juggling performer, dressed in a motley jester’s costume, watches as his wild-eyed monkey runs away. The creature heads down the street and bounds into a bin filled with bananas. While the grocer rails at the monkey’s owner, the animal runs across the street clutching his prize. Next, it tosses the peel onto the sidewalk near a trash-can sign that reads, “Please Put Litter in Its Place” as a motorcycle sputters past with two tough-faced riders. After pulling over under another sign (“No Parking in This Space”), the pair dismount, and, of course, the driver slips on the peel. When this and future mishaps occur, suspense, thrills, chaos, and comedy result. Readers will soon understand that all of the background characters–small figures holding cell phones, Rollerblading, pushing baby carriages–will soon be drawn onto center stage. The book ends with an aerial map of the city block and a key identifying the locations of the signs, allowing kids to retrace the action. A glorious escapade packed with child appeal." Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Texas Trifles

Here's another happy reader of The American Story from Texas.
Message to Texas: I'm coming to Houston in January! Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Nancy blogs the National Book Awards

My friend, Nancy Werlin, is in New York now for the festivities related to the National Book Award. Her novel, The Rules of Survival, is a finalist for the NBA in young people's literature, or however they describe the category. Very exciting! Tobin Anderson is another finalist. What do you do when two friends are up for the same award?

I don't know, but I'm going to follow her blog with great interest. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Monday, November 13, 2006

awwwwww

I don't know whom to credit for this photo. I found it with Stumble Upon. Idn't he the tweetest?
One regret about my trip to Antarctica three years ago is that I never saw baby seals. Big fat grownup seals, yes, but no widdle pups. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Ups and Downs

So I have to confess, I was really disappointed yesterday that Once Upon a Banana did not make the NYT 10 Best Illustrated Books of the Year list. I can't imagine how it failed to score, and I'm bummed.

On the plus side, this morning I was reading the New Yorker in a waiting room, and discovered a big ad for The American Story on the book review page. It used the Tom Brokaw quote and a piece from the Wall Street Journal review. I guess we can infer the market this ad is intended to reach. Would that be grandma and grandpa? I think so. Yes, I think so. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Saturday, November 11, 2006

What a Song Can Do: Twelve Riffs on the Power of Music

Here's a review I just found of a book of mine from a few years go -- a collection of stories I compiled and edited. Three authors from my previous anthology (Shattered: Stories of Children and War) had stories in this collection -- Joseph Bruchac, Diane Curtis Regan, and Ibtisam Barakat. Keep your eyes peeled for Ibtisam's forthcoming memoir from FSG. I'm not sure what the pub date is, but I read the book in manuscript and it is a riveting account of a Palestinian childhood. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

A banana store. I'm not kidding.

And Once Upon a Banana is among the books they offer. Thank heavens! It would be mortifying to be snubbed by the banana store. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

A Good Thing

Apprently Martha Stewart Living Radio (who knew there was such a thing?) has a kids' book segment every Tuesday. Last week's election day theme was patriotism, according to the Children's Book Council website. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Friday, November 10, 2006

Why my voice is hoarse today

Two reasons, which I shall now elucidate:

1. Yesterday I spoke at the New York State Reading Association (NYSRA) conference, held here in Saratoga Springs at our convention center. I always love it when NYSRA or NYLA (NY Library Assn.) hold their conventions here, because this is a speaking gig I can WALK to! However, the breakout room they had me in was a sectioned off piece of the exhibit hall, i.e. vast, uncarpeted echo chamber. Microphone wasn't working. You get the picture.


2. I competed in a charity Scrabble tournament last night to benefit the Literacy Volunteers in our area. There was a huge turnout of teams of eight. My regular Sunday night Scrabble worthies had urged me to lead them to victory in this competetion when the invites first went out a month or so ago. I thought my gig at the NYSRA convention was at night, so I said I couldn't play. When I realized yesterday that I could, I got on the phone to my crew: James "No Trump" Morrison (my bridge partner), Michael "Homme de Wicker" Belanger, and Rumara "Seven-Letter-Word" Jewett. The evening's festivities were held at a local restaurant/banquet spot, the kind with a koi pond you have to edge past to get to the buffet. We were matched with another half-team, the Junkyard Dogs. The idea is simple: working as a team, we try to maximize the point value of the letters and the board, and the team with the highest point count is the night's winner. Cheating was not only allowed but encouraged -- for a price. We were able to buy additional letters for the point value of the letter (i.e., A = $1, Z = $10). After a practice round we hit upon our brilliant strategy -- to buy up all the available extra S's, because of course the easiest way to recount a word is to add an S and build perpendicular to it. When other teams began trying to buy extra S's they discovered, to their horror, that none were left. Once the real match began the entire room resounded with screaming and yelling as team members shouted such things as, "VORTEX! PUT THE X ON THE TRIPLE LETTER" "DISGORGES! NO! DISGRACES! WHERE'S THE C?" "COUNT IT UP! 24x3x3!"

We came in third. Next year, trust me, we will be #1. We'll have worked out an even more cunning plan. If we have to spend all our money on the extra letters we will. As you might infer, competition is the gasoline that runs this gang's engine. No, I take that back. Not competition, winning.

p.s. after the tournament we came back to my house to play Scrabble... Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Once Upon a Banana "Borders on the insane," says Fuse #8

Thank you, Betsy! This is a really tremendous review. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Faith restored

Farewell, Rummy. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Monday, November 06, 2006

Dispatches from New York #2

Great. So naturally it would be while I'm out of town that my own local public radio station, the stupendous WAMC, airs something about The American Story. And I missed it. Bookshelves of Doom blogged about the book just the other day. Actually I'm not even sure what day it is today, I only know that I have to be ready to head to Connecticut at 7:15 a.m. Not a happy thought to get me up at 6. No, not a happy thought.
But San Diego Union Tribune tossed a banana our way today. That's good.
At yesterday's signing at Books of Wonder on 18th Street, fellow bloggers Cheryl Klein of Brooklyn Arden, and Betsy Bird, of Fuse #8 stopped to say hello. At the end of the event we (David and Sarah and I) decided to walk back uptown to our hotel. We passed numerous tired-looking runners wrapped in mylar space blankets the farther uptown we walked. This is a busy busy beehive, this city. Today's agenda consists of presentations in Connecticut, and then back to the city. One more event tomorrow, and then home to VOTE. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Dispatches from New York #1

You know how it is when you're traveling, and you haven't really done all that much but you're exhausted anyway? That's me. Started the day in Chicago, did a bookstore event, went to the airport, flew to La Guardia, drove in to Manhattan, checked in, ate dinner -- you wouldn't think this could all be so tiring, but it is. The city is full -- FULL -- of people for the marathon. Latest estimates are there are 37,000 runners for tomorrow. Thankfully they are not all staying at the Parker Meridien.

By the way, even as I write, the wicker man is smoldering into nothing, or so it should be if all went according to plan. I'll check in with friends tomorrow to find out.

Nighty night. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Friday, November 03, 2006

Dispatches from Chicago, #4

Here we are at Lincolnwood Elementary in -- hang on, let me refer to my printed itinerary -- Evanston, Illinois. I found a monkey in the library before our presentation and decided to hang onto it during the entire time I was on stage. You start to get a little punchy after several days in a row of doing the same thing. I don't know, it just felt better to hang onto a monkey while I was talking at this school, # 2 of the day, # I-don't-know-what of the week. We crawled our way up the west coast of Lake Michigan today, and ate lunch at a perfectly horrible Chinese restaurant in the town of Gurnee. The sort of meal that afterward you think to yourself "Why did I eat that? I knew the moment I saw it it would be horrible. But I ate it anyway." A shaming sort of experience. David and Sarah and I ate food we didn't want, and only our media escort, Art, was smart enough to stick with tea. Sarah was a little green around the gills by the time we got to our third school of the day. She's like a benign spirit at the back of the room during our presentations -- holding up her ancient tiny teddy bear, Richard, for a model for David to draw during his drawing demonstrations when he needs her, or receding modestly into obscurity -- never mind that she is the author of some of his most beloved books. Tomorrow we have an event at a Borders in La Grange and then off we go to the airport.
Best of all -- we don't have to be out the door at the crack of dawn to visit elementary schools. Praise the lord and pass the salt. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Dispatches from Chicago, #3

Up late, overslept, I'm running behind before I run out the door for another day in schools and bookstores. David and I have honed our presentation to a pretty professional show, and with an antsy group of kids just getting seated in a gym or 'multi purpose' room, he starts drawing on a big easel and suddenly they fall into a trance. Kids are digging this book.

Gotta go! Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Dispatches from Chicago, #2

Spent the day in Milwaukee. In the afternoon we stopped at the elegant old Pfister Hotel for a drink in the rooftop bar and saw Daniel Handler wheeling his suitcase onto the elevator. For those blog readers not in the know, he is that lugubrious genius who writes under the name Lemony Snickett. I knew we'd be stomping the same grounds on this tour, but I didn't expect actually to run into him... Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets

Dispatches from Chicago, #1

Flew to Chicago yesterday afternoon and arrived at the Four Seasons, to find this waiting for me in my room. It's a box made of chocolate, with chocolates inside, and chocolate dipped strawberries on a chocolate drizzled plate. The funny thing is that I'm here to promote Once Upon a Banana for Simon & Schuster. This is The American Story, published by Random House. This suggests that it wasn't S & S who prepared this flattering treat on my behalf. When the phone rang it was David Small, saying that he and his wife, Sarah Stewart, had also arrived, and how about dinner? And he also had a chocolate box in his room, not decorated to look like Once Upon a Banana, but to look like Imogene's Antlers. From this, novice detectives that we are, we deduced that some guest services guru here at the hotel made it a mission to find out who we are and what to do about it. A really sweet and thoughtful gift that took a little left turn somewhere. David and Sarah and I had dinner, talked strategy for our presentations, etc.
This is the view of Lake Michigan from my room. Nice huh? I tried to take a picture of the sunrise but the batteries in my camera conked out and I wasn't able to get new ones until I went down to breakfast. A media escort will be picking us up soon to take us to Milwaukee, and we'll be back here late tonight. Best Blogger Tips
  • Share On Facebook
  • Digg This Post
  • Stumble This Post
  • Tweet This Post
  • Bookmark On Technorati
Blog Bookmark Gadgets