Oxford: Big Kindergarten

Now this is a l-o-n-g story, so get comfortable.......... Last month as I was driving outta town, I swung by the Oxford school to drop off a box of my books for a mom's-night-out sale. It dawned on me that the moms might appreciate if I signed the copies, so I sat in the lobby of a school where I'd never, ever been before and autographed a stack of my books. As I'm sitting there with sharpie in hand, I hear the very song of my book, wafting through the wall. I'm tooooooo amazed for words! Time to pinch myself, again.

As quick as a wink, I get the director to take me back to the classroom where my song is playing. We go down the hall to the kindergarten room...... and open the door and REALLY surprise the children who are in the midst of practising my song for an upcoming holiday show. The timing couldn't have been more amazing if it had been planned by a whole, entire committee of angels -- or maybe it was?

For the first time ever, after the song and sign language performance was complete, my new kindergarten friends READ my book to me!! Some of the kids even 'sang-read-sang' their two page spread. After lots of hugs, I hit the road for my mini-tour in Michigan. Welllllllll........ then under the capable hands of their creative teacher, the class crafted me a big, bright, paper quilted thank-you gift, but it turned out too big to fit in an envelope.

So then I got invited back to their classroom for the great reveal! Pictured here, at the end of their day are my creative kindergarten friends. I'm holding their AWESOME present. As a special reciprocal thanks to them -- I let them hear a couple of the new songs that I've been working on. They were the first kids on Planet Earth to sing along to these new pieces. This is an example of mutual fan-clubs in action.