D and I went to his company picnic last Friday. I bought a new outfit and new shoes, shoes with non-rounded toes, with a HEEL, a high heeled pair of shoes. I had to wear them around the house while I worked so they'd stretch a little bit. I love my feet. They are bony and veiny and wide. They look like my hands. My feet and hands are the very same as my Grandpa Hi's, my Grandma Pearl's and my mom's. Except for the color of my eyes, these body parts are pretty much the family legacy. No money, no treasures, just bony body parts.

Okay, because it has been so dark today and I needed a little pick me up and a little light, I went out and took photos of the color in the yard.

Gary Schmidt and Best Books Ever

Sunrise was at 7:32, sunset will be at 5:15 but on days like this, it just stays dark and gets darker until it's night. It's cold, wet, windy; gray, sage and brown. I know there are bright spots out there somewhere but it's too uncomfortable outside to go look. I just heard that it's 50 degrees and my feet are freezing.

It's noon, I've been up for an hour, too many late nights reading, have drunk half a pot of coffee, and am boiling up some beans for chili. I can't seem to focus on any one thing: it took me 20 minutes to empty the dishwasher and I still haven't put the pans away. Looked at facebook, then got distracted by a pile of books, then jumped back and forth between the blogger dashboard and email. I finally turned the heat up and the heat has risen to my shoulders and now I'm too warm (and my feet are still cold).

Since it's Friday and my day off, anything for an excuse, I am going to make ramen for lunch! YAY! My favorite comfort food. And, yes, the small, square, packages that are 10 for a dollar, are my ramen of choice. Lots of celery, snow peas, and some cheese all melted through. Mmmmm. I used to make this for my high school boyfriend; in college I had a friend over for dinner and this is what I made (he said, "Maybe you can't cook, but you can sure stir!"). I love this stuff. I know it's not the best possible food on earth, and I always end up napping after, but it makes me HAPPY!

I received the boxes of books (and, yes, I said BOXES) from the Winter Institute shipping room and I left them unopened for a couple of days, sitting on the floor in the dining room. I put off opening them because it was such a treat knowing what was inside, knowing how great it was going to be to get inside and pull them out, one book at a time, ruffling the pages, looking at the back covers, putting this one in the immediate pile, this one in the next pile, this one on the table so I could read it NOW.

I pulled Divergent out first and read that one in one long pull, then I searched for Okay for Now, written by Gary D. Schmidt, because I really wanted to read that one first.

Okay for Now is Mr. Schmidt's companion to The Wednesday Wars, one of the best books ever. And now I can add Okay for Now to my list of One of the Best Books Ever.

Doug Swieteck is an 8th grader. His dad is a slob and an alcoholic, a mean man. His mom is amazing, his brother is beginning to take after his dad, and his other brother is in Viet Nam. When the book begins, they have to move away from the world they know to "Stupid Marysville", a town with a stupid library, a stupid store, and a stupid school, because his dad got himself fired from his stupid job.

I don't want to tell you too much about the book because it is such a joy to read. I told D. how much I liked this book and a little bit about it and he said something along the lines of "sounds really uplifting". Well, it is. Doug is a great character and so realistic. He's confused, unhappy, worried, angry but so wants to do well and be a good friend. Will he ever get his chance? Will his hoodlum brother's reputation always get in Doug's way? Will his dad's friend, Ernie, get him fired again? What will happen when/if his oldest brother comes home from the war? How is he going to deal with school when his disabilities are discovered?

Thank whatever's out there for libraries, librarians, and friends who see something good in you. When Doug finally gets himself admitted to the library and makes his way to an echoey room with a glass box in the center, he finds something that gives his life focus and reason. That enclosed book and its paintings of birds give him something beautiful and all his own to hold close to his chest. Something his father can't take, that he can share in little ways with others, and something outside himself that he feels he can make the world a better place.

I LOVED this book. Now I want to reread Wednesday Wars and then this one, again.

Gary D. Schmidt will be coming to Third Place Books in May. Read one of his books and then come meet him. The photo at the top of the page is of Gary signing my copy of Okay for Now at Winter Institute. Isn't that COOL!

(And the ramen? it was good and I started Bumped, by Megan McCafferty, while I ate and scraped up every bit of stringy cheddar and snapped into those bright green veggies.)

David Levithan and The Lover's Dictionary

Oh! I had my second physical therapy appointment today, many tiny movements writ big, movements connecting those tiny wrist bones and their delicate shifts and those big shoulder bones that are so affected by the lack of movement in those wrist bones. One more therapy session and x-rays next week. Woohoo!

I know, I know, two posts in one day but I have to tell you about David Levithan's new book for grown-ups, The Lover's Dictionary.

The Lover's Dictionary is the story of a relationship told in alphabetical order using words from the dictionary where the definition is a memory/thought/entry defining that word. It is such a cool book! I just couldn't pick up Getting Things Done to read while I had breakfast. This is what I took with me to therapy and just had to keep reading.

"disabuse, v.

I love the idea that an abuse can be negated. And that the things most often disabused are notions."

It is a very interesting way to tell a story- I have visions of using this idea in our summer book and writing programs - however, using words that may not be loaded with so many adult connotations.

David Levithan writes beautifully, something you'd expect since he is an editor at Scholastic. If you haven't read anything by him, check him out (Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, Love is the Higher Law...). He will be at Elliot Bay Bookstore for this book on Saturday and I think I need to be there.

Maybe I'll see you there!

(Lover's Dictionary is for grown-ups. Available now, $18.00. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.)

Divergent for Spring

Sunrise is at 7:35, sunset will be at 5:12. The Olympic mountains are ghostly this morning. The snow glows against the graying skies and the snow-cleared rock is the same shade of sky - the peaks float above the Sound. And now they are pink as the sun has finally risen high enough to illuminate that side of the landscape.

It's sunny and COLD. It isn't back east or Texas cold but it's still cold. Had to cover the daphne again last night so it might have even a few buds open in late February. The lilac buds are beginning to plump up and I heard a bird at 5 am the other day. I guess Punxsatawney Phil is right: Spring must be right around the corner.

I was up until 1 last night, this morning, whatever, reading Divergent, by Veronica Roth, a first-time author. What a book! One of the things we did at Winter Institute was a Speed Dating thing: authors spent 15 minutes speaking to us about their favorite books and then they'd move on to the next table and keep spreading the good news. I would say that at least every presenter had at least one book they compared to Hunger Games. Hunger Games meets Twilight, Hunger Games goes feral....I remember talking to someone about that: what if there was no Hunger Games? How would you describe these books then?

Divergent takes place well into the future, in a degrading Chicago, and is the story of a girl who lives in one of five Factions. In the bad days, it was decided that evil, poverty, violence, all these things could be lessened or gone if the world was divided into groups that were the essence of certain virtues. Beatrice is born into the Abnegators, one who gives selflessly, thinks only of others, and is able to think clearly because they have nothing above anyone else. They are also the people in charge of the government because they only think about what would be best for everyone.

At the age of 16, the children are able to choose where they would like to spend the rest of their lives, to switch factions, if they are unhappy, to one that more closely reflects who they are. The other factions are Erudite, the scholarly, research laden, Dauntless, brave and exciting, the ones in charge of training for battle (just in case), Amity, balanced and happy, and Candor, the ones who see through the crap and see things only in black and white, truth tellers.

This one choice can change everything they have ever known, can take them from their families and friends, change who they will ever be.

Beatrice and her brother, Caleb, are 16 and the story begins as they are being tested to see which faction they would best be suited for. Beatrice has begun to really question who she is, she has realized that she is not suited for selfless giving, she feels selfish and questioning, not an Abnegator. When she decides, she chooses the most opposite faction she can: Dauntless.

This is an amazingly compelling read. Filled with exciting action, evil people, great romance, big ideas and massive fallibility- I truly could not put it down, and neither could Annie, one of my co-workers at Third Place. I started it last night at 9:30 and was truly concerned that I would not finish before midnight. I didn't, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't know how this first part ended.

This book will be garnering a ton of buzz and press, so order it up from your local, independent bookstore.

I probably should have finished the rest of the first chapter of Getting Things Done that I have to have done by tomorrow before I picked up Ms. Roth's novel. I can read a 487 page book like Divergent in a single bedtime reading and it takes me days to get through 53 pages of a business book. Hmmm. (Divergent will be available in May, 2011. Age14 and up. $17.99.)

Alice Hoffman is Coming!

Sunrise was at 7:36, sunset will be at 5:10. At 7 am the sky is a pure indigo blue, just beginning to announce the day. It is the same color at 6 pm. There is just a clear deep blue, like light coming through stained glass, bookending our days. There are a few extra minutes of light per day and it is finally noticeable. When 4:30 pm comes and goes and it is still daylight, you know it's coming up spring.

Like many people who read a lot, there isn't a lot of time between one book and the next. I finished reading Red Garden, Alice Hoffman's newest (published) book and received her VERY NEXT book in the mail, The Dovekeepers, the same day. That's a good thing because she's coming to the store on FRIDAY! I can't wait! I hope she'll sign all my books-I've been reading her for decades and have been hoarding everything just in case I ever got to meet her! Favorite AH books? White Horses (this was my introduction to AH and is still my all-time favorite book by her) Illumination Night, Practical Magic, Red Garden, and, even though I'm not finished with it, Dovekeepers.

I found myself wandering all over the house reading Red Garden. I read it while on the bike in the living room, and then carried it everywhere, reading over the counter stirring breakfast, draped over the bannister upstairs, putting my pants on, holding the pages down with the blankets putting on my socks. Finished it eating breakfast. Very satisfying, very Alice Hoffman-ish. Very much a loud whisper of a book; I lean in to hear more. I find her books to be powerful in their quietude.

Red Garden is the story of a place and, within that story, the stories of the women of that place. Three hundred years of the history and the making of a small town through the memories and passions of the women who lived there. At the center of the town, and at the center of the book, is a garden where only red plants grow, where even transplanted plants turn red. And at the center of the garden is a secret.

I love her books because of the secrets that the people in her books hold close. They are secrets that change the lives of those who hold them and they can be as simple as a crush or as complex as murder - and I have found a relationship with her characters because I can see their secrets reflected in my own. Her characters are fictional but the actions they take and the passions they feel are very much ours.

I can't wait to get back to Dovekeepers (must read book called Getting Things Done first for a staff book group), a story that takes place in 70 c.e. about a girl whose mother dies while she is being born and so she is ostracized within her family; her father thinks she is cursed. As the Romans destroy Jerusalem, she and her father escape into the desert and she falls in love with a man whose family is traveling with them. It's really good. The language, history and rites of the times are fascinating, and I am anxiously awaiting my return to it. (Dovekeepers will be available in October, '11.)

Firsts: The Monkees and The Emerald Atlas

Sunrise today was at 7:44, sunset will be at 4:59. There's still light in the sky at 5:30 pm!

KUOW's Steve Sher is doing a story about the first record album bought with your own money. Many memories popped into my head about my first record: The Monkees were the first band I fell in love with, as well as the first album bought for me (we had little spending money so Mom included our music in her selections-thank you, Mom).

To this day I recognize the opening notes of every song on this record. I took it with me from Eugene to Eureka the summer it came out, afraid that the t.v. show wouldn't be on and I'd need the relief of Davy's face on the record cover while I waited to go back home to a television where The Monkees were always on at a specifically designated time and day. Never mind that Grandma and Grandpa didn't have a record player.

I'd lie in the attic bed, dreaming that, because we were, after all, in California, we'd just happen across Davy Jones and he'd drop that blond bikini-ed bimbo hovering over him on the back of the record, opting instead for a girl of 10 with long straight brown hair and glasses, seeing something in me he would wait for. Maybe I'd eventually fill a bikini and walk on the sand with him, holding hands in the sunset. Oh, my god, the yearning in my soul for him, his starry eyes and his accent.

I am back from Washington, DC, Arlington, actually, where we spent a few extremely cold days and nights at The Winter Institute, an educational and fun event all about books, bookselling, business, and friends. We (Robert Sindelar, Michael Coy, and I) learned a lot and ate a lot, met many new people and reconnected with old friends and collected lots of new books. I pretty much concentrated on the children's book side of things, can't help it, I like kids' books, and have sent boxes of new authors' books home to review and then to share with customers and you, dear reader.

One of the best parts of the Institute is the Speed Dating part: Many publishers present as many books as they can in 15 minutes, moving on and presenting again. It gives booksellers a broad swathe of genres and favorites to investigate afterward. The next best part is meeting those books' authors at the receptions that separate the educational parts of the day and the following dinners with other booksellers and authors. Wine, books, dessert, mmmmm... nothing better.

One of the authors I was really excited to meet was John Stephens. He was a writer for The Gilmore Girls, produced Gossip Girls, but has written his first kids' book called The Emerald Atlas. I was in the middle of this book when I left for DC and then finished it last night.

This is going to be huge, kids! Put it on your list of books to buy, get a first edition, as soon as you can. It is the story of three children, they might be orphans, who are sure their parents will be back for them. In the final orphanage, the last and worst orphanage that will take them, they embark on a journey and quest that will take them back and forth in time, in and out of people's lives, searching always for home and family. It is a great story, filled with adventure and danger, a good deal of humor, smart and brave children, horrible, evil adults, and magic, magic everywhere. It feels a little like Narnia, has good language and pacing, great story for both genders...I LOVED it! I can't wait for the next one!

Age 9 and up. The Emerald Atlas will be available April 5, 2011, published by Knopf. $17.99.

Ship Breaker and bone breaks

The sun will rise at 7:55 and will set at 4:40.

I have an appointment this morning for x-rays to see if I can take my "cast" off! Woo hoo! No more missing Ns because my cast spaces forward! No more accidentally entering data with a strap tap! No more catching and snagging all my scarves and sweaters, velcroing myself to my clothes. Not to mention having both hands and arms velcro to each other when I sleep because I have two braces, one for my right hand and the breaks, one for my left hand and the rapidly changing carpal tunnel problems there.

It's overcast and cold, my daphne bush is almost bald because it was exposed to the frost (I really tried to keep it covered), and it's supposed to snow just in time for the evening commute. Great. Last time it snowed and I did the right thing by taking mass transit, it took me almost 5 hours to get home and I broke my wrist. Today, I go in late so I may miss the evening commute because I get off at 8, but it could be freezing rain over the snow, before it starts to plain rain and melt the snow.

There has been a bright piece of news in this week of horrible stuff: The Newbery, Caldecott, and other children's book awards were announced yesterday and we are all pretty happy about the choices. The Newbery award went to Moon Over Manifest (which I have yet to read), the Caldecott went to Sick Day for Amos McGee, and the Printz award was given to Ship Breaker. The author of Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigulpi, won the Nebula award and tied for the Hugo Award (science fiction book awards) for his grown-up book Wind-up Girl, and has now picked up the award for best book for older readers. It was really good, I just don't know if I can believe it was the BEST book that I, personally, have read this year.

Ship Breaker takes place well into the future when the gap between those who have and those who don't is immense. There is small very wealthy group and everyone else. Our hero lives in an area near what used to be New Orleans, a landscape buried under fathoms of seawater, skyscapers don't even break into the air, and he works at the old shipworks and docks, breaking ships for scrap metal, looking for a treasure trove of holds filled with oil or fuel. Dangerous work as the ships shift and shake and the children who are small enough to slither between the walls looking for the gold often get lost or die in them.

In this particular world, our hero and his friend find a yacht tied offshore (a treasure that is worth more than they can imagine), a dead man, and a live girl. The girl, wealthy and spoiled, tries to convince the boys to let her go, that there will be a ransom paid, but before that happens, she is tracked and it is sure that whoever killed the man is looking to kill her, too.

Great adventure, great friendships, an intriguing look at a world that could be. It's very much like looking at a foreign culture. Very cool book, both genders will really enjoy it. Age 10 and up. (17.99. Little Brown.)

(This post was written, oh, so long ago, (last Tuesday?) and, no, I am still in my brace. I am still having trouble flipping eggs and combing my hair (spatulae get caught inside the brace and I can't bend my wrist). I may be able to downgrade to a thumbless brace next week-hope for me that that happens, the metal rods in the brace have cut through and are pressing against my thumb-and start physical therapy then. Then two more weeks in the thumb-free brace and then x-rays. Again. I am complaining about this little thing but I know how hard other people have it: My friend Tessa fell down her stairs and shattered her wrist: surgery, pins, plates, full cast, slings, shoulder pain...I am thankful that I only cracked my scafula(?) and chipped a bone. It's just a long time in something that has absolutely no style and is beginning to reek.)

(Oh, and now I'm in Arlington, Virginia, attending ABA's Winter Institute 6, getting ready to come home to Seattle. I am going to post from here! WooHOO!!)