First Book Club Appearance

MIGRATION TIME. Summer's over: sigh. In real life I am packing my bags and boxes and preparing to leave our little summer slice-of-heaven to depart for a month of Buckeye vagabond ahead..... and then continue heading further south to arrive in Florida in time for NAEYC in Orlando.  I'm packing up my tank-tops and shorts in an effort to head south for the winter. In putting my feet up tonight I happened through my camera's memory chip and realized that there are any number of events and sights that never got out of their film-stage and here on to my scrapbook and blog-central.

I spend a great deal of my time with people that are three, four and five years old. Now in my evolution to that of being an author-illustrator I've been stretching my comfort zone quite a bit in the past couple of years by making regular visits to elementary schools and speaking to mature eight, nine and ten year old people -- with the occasional section of pre-teens thrown in to make me feel like I'm growing up with the kids.

Time for another first!!!  Add a few more decades to the people or six or seven decades as the case may be. This was the season that I had the opportunity to 'speak' to Door County's longest running book club. A group that's met together continuously focused on the subject of books and literacy for WELL over half-a-century. Let me just suffice it to say that the book club's been in existence longer than I have.... beyond that I'd have to make a call for the absolute specifics.

This was a group of women who have amazing lives and an entire cross section of professions were represented. Some in attendance have already reached their eighties. Any number of gals are already GREAT-grandmas. There were also LOTS of seventy-somethings in attendance and a few spring chickens in their sixties. The conversation at our table over lunch was utterly fascinating!!!

Good sports learning sign language.

Look at these glorious smiles. That's the leadership-officers-brain-trust, MOI and fellow guest Lynn from my yoga class. What a power-house. Guess what? My books work with three year olds and they're well received by eighty-three year olds as well!! I once had a seventh grade teacher purchase my "You're Wonderful" for her seventh grade students. When I raised an eyebrow, she responded without skipping a beat:
"You know, Debbie, there's no shelf-life on self esteem."