Tons of Fun News!

Dawn's house has heat! Hurray! I stopped in very briefly this morning and the heat was on. My friends' nephew had come yesterday. Dawn's mom was about to sit down with a family counselor I think Big Picture helped her contact, so I got out of the way.

More books got distributed today--yay! It was awfully fun to walk around giving people books today. The upper grade English teacher was really happy to see some brand-new books for independent reading. She had a class set of Adaline Falling Star in her window sill waiting for repairs. All but one of them were completely beaten up: covers torn, pages dog-eared. Clearly they had been well-loved by previous readers. The book came out in 2000, but I would have guessed they were 15 years old by their appearance. She was planning to try to repair the covers and binders as best she could. She also had a new class set of another book waiting for plastic covers in hopes of preventing such mutilation down the road.

I had another batch for the Chavez main campus. The teacher leader there was pleasantly surprised that most of them were nonfiction for younger readers. Later I stopped by Big Picture and San Miguel. At San Miguel I met the librarian, who was delighted. "Any time you get more, come on by," she said.

This afternoon, I went to the big dollar store south of 51st, and discovered School Lady's oldest daughter works there. She told me her youngest sister has been bugging her to take her to the library, but she hasn't had time to go. So I went over there and handed her a bagful. She brought out a puppy for me to pet. His eyes were open this time.

Finally, I had saved all the Spanish-language ones for the Bradys--they have primary grade and younger kids in the house who don't know much English yet, and it will help strengthen both their Spanish and their general literacy to read and be read to in Spanish. The way their mom's eyes lit up when she saw Spanish-language books last fall make me think either she or the older kids will be reading those to the youngest ones. So I took the new, smaller batch (maybe eight or so) and handed them to one of the boys, who had spotted me on the street, grabbed his coat and ran over to pick them up. I wasn't sure if he was more excited about the book or the excuse to be outside after all the crummy weather we've been having. However, he took them back down the street, and when I came back outside, he and his sisters were letting their friends from up the block each pick one they liked. The boy chose one about animal fur and skin; the girl picked a book about how to grow seeds.

So now I just have about half a dozen books left for Mr. Worrisome's nephew and niece.