A Dream Come True - for a while!

Those of you that know me, know that Lois Lowery's The Giver is one of my favorite chapter books ever..until her book The Willoughbys came out last spring. Actually, they are favorites in different categories. When we received a notice that Lois and Jack Cantos were coming to speak, I bought a couple of copies of their books, ignored all of my plans to get ahead with assignments,and hiked back across campus to hear these people whose writing I admire. My greatest regret is that I did not have my tattered copies of their books to autograph, but who knew?

The panel only had 20 minutes to talk. That was the most frustrating part of the evening - that and I was late so I had to sit in the back. (By the way, you cannot see much, but this is the lecture room for 2 of my classes.) This is Lois Lowery telling us an amazing story about Alan Say that I will try to duplicate, but there is not enough time or space to do justice to the story.

Lois is sitting down at the front of the room wearing the tan turtleneck. This is the brief version of her story. (Kristine - I have to tell you the whole story when I get home - you will love it!)
When she was little, Lois' Dad was stationed in the South Pacific. She lived with her mother and her siblings in Pennsylvania in her grandfather's house, so she really did not know her dad very well. When he came home on visits, she said that she was actually afraid of him. Once he achieved officer status, he brought his family to Japan where he was stationed. Lois says that she was extremely shy and lonely. Every day she would ride her green bike to the limits of the base where they were stationed and every day there was an equally shy young Japanese boy on the other side of the fence. They never spoke - they just watched each other. This went on for months until her family moved.
Lois was at the Newbury awards to receive hers for The Giver(how many of us can toss that into conversations?) during which they also present the Caldecott Awards. Lois was seated next to Alan Say who was there to receive his Caldecott. They began to chat, sharing personal histories. You can imagine the conversation:
Lois: "I lived in Japan for a while when I was young."
Alan: "I did too! Where did you live?"
Lois: " Name of the place"
Alan: "I lived there too. When were you there?"
Lois: "Dates" (Of course I do not remember the specifics)
You have probably already guessed that Alan was there as well. As they narrowed the location and times of their youth in Japan, Alan stopped and said, "Were you the girl on the green bicycle?"
HOW COOL IS THAT?
Now, Jack Cantos. If you have read the Joey Pigza books, he is Joey Pigza. He had us all in stitches which should not have been a surprise as I laughed so hard when I read about Joey putting his vomiting dog in the glove compartment in his book, Joey Pigza Looses Control. He vows that he based that character on a kid in his class, but, oh my goodness, he had some of the same behaviors.

What a great night....until I had to come back and work until 1:00 on a statistics report.