A Snow Day

Feb 19, 2014

I got a snow day today,something I haven’t enjoyed for awhile. I was supposed to be doing an author visit at Bayside Middle School. I must admit I was not looking forward to it. It’s not that I didn’t want to meet the 24 kids that have read my three books as a book club. I really was looking forward to that as well as meeting with three of Miss. Fullerton’s Grade 6&7 classes. The reason that I wasn’t keen about going was that I was exhausted from yesterday. Yesterday, I spent a busy and enjoyable day at Westfield Elementary School. I did seven, half hour presentations with students from K-5. The kids were fantastic.I started out a bit shaky facing a crowd of kindergarten kids after they had had a four day break,had lots of snow , were ready to celebrate 100 day and have a belated Valentine’s party.Kindergarten is not my comfort grade level. I am in awe of how the teachers that choose to begin our children on their academic journey keep their sanity.Note to self (something I already knew but forgot)DO NOT ASK KINDERGARTEN KIDS IF THEY HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.From my shaky start things got much better. As always some of the kids questions were insightful and sincere.One grade 5 class came to me anxious for me to read the last chapter of Ten Thousand Truths to them. Their teacher had just finished reading up to the last chapter before lunch. The looks on the faces of the kids anticipating the end of the book read by the author was thrilling to me. My eyes fill with tears as I write this. What more could an author ask for than to see her work make a deep connection with readers? In the afternoon I did a writer’s workshop with 16 kids. It was great. As always I am encouraged that telling and writing stories will continue with our youth despite the gloomy predictions. So today, I get a snow day to re-group.My Bayside visit will be re-scheduled and I will by then be ready and pleased to be there. My exhaustion is a good one but further proves that I stopped teaching at the right time.My energy is now for writing and on this snowy day I am in my office ready to get to work.

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