So I was Really Sick

We've had the puppy for two weeks now--her name is Cava--and I spent one of those weeks really sick. For some reason I was entirely in denial about how sick I was. I'm still not sure why.

It was food poisoning--campylobacter, as it turns out--which has an incubation of 3 to 7 days, so hard to say exactly where it came from. I started feeling bad Saturday night--eleven days ago--when, just after I went to bed, I came down with the worst chills of my life. Pretty soon I was huddled under five blankets, wearing a wool sweater and socks over my pajamas, shivering so hard my shoulder muscles ached afterward. That lasted a few hours. Then I spiked a fever that had me on top of all the blankets, wearing only a t-shirt, drenched in sweat.

My husband plied me with Tylenol, Advil, and Imodium--I needed that, too--and my symptoms abated for a few hours, only to return every time the meds started wearing off. I spent all Sunday asleep in my bed, alternating between chills and fever.

Monday I moved to the couch, which somehow seemed like improvement enough that I flat-out refused to go to the doctor. Even now I can't really say why. I didn't want to, and I didn't go. I should add that my husband is actually a doctor, and that he was saying, emphatically and often, that I needed to go to my own doctor. And I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to be sick.

Which as we all know has nothing to do with anything.

So. I had another really difficult night Monday night--three in a row, for those who are counting--and I woke up realizing that I really did need to go to the doctor. I'd eaten very little the day before and my gut was starting to feel heavy, turgid. I was wildly thirsty. I went downstairs and took a slug of Sprite and pain shot through my abdomen. Yikes.

So then I ended up in the emergency room, with my lovely patient husband trying not to grind his teeth over how annoying I'd been. Fortunately my daughter is home for a few weeks and she stepped in also--between the two of them they kept me company and helped me get proper care and took care of the horses and the new puppy. They were superstars.

I was not, even then. My husband left the ER for a few hours to see some urgent patients of his own and clear the rest of his schedule. When he returned, I told him hotly that some woman from "respiratory" had come in and told me they were scheduling me for breathing treatments, and that I'd told her it was all hogwash, I would just take my asthma inhalers the way I usually did.

My husband said, "Could you please start being a patient and quit being a pain in the ass?"

I have a feeling that as a doctor he's waited a very long time to say those words to somebody.

Anyhow I complained that I didn't need "Respiratory" and he said, "Your sat is 93," and I said, "WHAT?" because I know full well my blood oxygen saturation is supposed to be above 95, always. I said, "why is my sat 93?" and he said, "Because. You. Are. Sick." and I said that if the Respiratory woman had told me my sat was 93 I wouldn't have brushed her off. (It didn't matter. She came back and gave me a treatment as though I'd never tried to refuse it; I got them twice a day the whole time I was in the hospital, and my sat went back up.)

Anyway I ended up admitted to the hospital and I stayed there until Friday. We had to cancel a family golf trip, to our dismay. (I don't golf, but I love the place where we were going.) My son was able to come home instead of meet us at the golf place, so that was good. I had big bruises all over my arms from all the IVs and blood draws. I took naps all weekend and eased back into eating.

Yesterday my daughter was cleared to ride her horse again, after the knee surgery she had 10 weeks ago. We went out together on a long walk hack, through the wet high grass redolent  with the heavy smell of honeysuckle. It was fantastic.

I really am better now. I really was sick.

Puppies and Writing as a Real Job

I'm writing this with a sleeping puppy in my lap.

For real. Her name is Cava. She's a 10-week-old cavoodle, which is a cross between a miniature poodle and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. She finds our house a little overwhelming, what with all the smells and textures and sounds (she's very sensitive to loud noises, dislikes my sneezing) but already seems willing and able to find comfort in my husband and me.

It feels so good to have a dog in the house again. I like this one in particular very much.

Yesterday I got an email from a school who'd expressed interest in an author visit. I'd written back with my parameters, including price. Now, I charge a lot for author visits. My novel The War That Saved My Life hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list, won a Newbery Honor, and has won eight state reader's choice awards so far. In other words, it's a critical success that appeals to children (those things don't always go hand-in-hand). I'm also good at presentations. I've done them for 20 years. And in the past two years I've had many more requests than I can accept. The amount I charge for school visits reflects all of that.

The school wrote back, asking if I'd accept 13% of the fee I'd quoted them.

I wanted to ask--I didn't, but I wanted to--Would you have asked a male author to reduce his fee that much? My gut feeling says no.

Writers in general don't talk about money as much as I think they should. Recently, in an effort to increase transparency, author Michelle Cusolito conducted a survey about author visits and pay. You can find the results here. I participated in the survey. What was most striking to me was the gender gap--that despite the fact that women outnumber men in children's publishing, men get more school visits, higher pay, and more book tours (that's when a publisher antes up the money to send you out for publicity) than female authors.

There's still something about being a female author of children's books that encourages people not to take you seriously as a professional. I'm counteracting that by taking myself seriously, as a professional. I don't devalue myself.

P.S. Just as I finished writing that, Cava woke up and started to whimper. I took her outside and told her to go potty. She did. In the GRASS. SCORE.

What a Wonderful Year

I type this sitting at a table inside the Atlanta airport, on my iPad, alongside a glass of white wine. Through a strange set of circumstances (a school visit schedule that ended at one, the instant availability of an Uber driver in Warrenton, VA, an extremely accommodating Delta airlines employee, and decent luck with the hellacious Dulles security line) I got ontology flight leaving at 3pm rather than 5:30 and am therefore scheduled to land at my Home airport at 8:15 instead of 11:30. I am grateful. I had a great day and an excellent week, but I am very glad to be headed home.

Today was my final school visit of the 2017-2018 academic year.  Between the book tour arranged by my publisher and events I arranged privately, I visited 39 schools this academic year. I gave presentations at 3 public libraries and many, many bookstores. I spoke at 5 major conferences. I have been gone nearly as much as I’ve been at home.

I have learned to pack for a week of presentations with only a carry-on bag. I have learned to adapt any presentation at any moment, including on a Friday afternoon when your “maximum 300” middle-school audience turns out to be 600 students seated on rickety enormous bleachers in a gym, whose windows can not be covered so no one can see the presentation slides (the microphone won’t work either). I’ve learned to stock less-than-3 oz sizes of all my favorite toiletries and also to check all small white tubes carefully, as the only thing worse than brushing your teeth with Benadryl is brushing them with Monostat.

I’ve learned to always set two alarms.

I’ve learned to hang onto the little cardboard envelope they stick your hotel key into, because it has your room number written on it, and after six hotels in six days you won’t clearly remember what city you’re in, much less what room number.

I’ve met hundreds of excellent educators and thousands of wonderful students. I love the people I write stories for. I think of the child who told me, forthrightly, that she was in foster care, so she understood how Ada felt. I think of the boy staring at me this morning, concentrating so hard my entire presentation, asking a very thoughtful question, and how afterward his teacher said she’d never seen him engaged before. I think of the children who draw pictures of ponies and who hoped Mam would get bombed and who loved Ada every bit as much as I do. I think of the eighth-grader in a small conservative town, who got up the courage to ask flat out, “Is Susan gay?” I think of his classmates, who cheered when I answered, “Yes.”

I think of the students from that group who came up to me after my presentation to thank me for writing about a loving gay parental figure, because they had loving gay parents. I think of the little girl who stood up and said into a microphone, “I have dyslexia. Are you saying I could really be a writer?” And I think of the way her face lit with joy when I answered, “of course you can, if you have a story to tell.”

I think of the unknown child who drew a sign on a piece of lined notebook paper, ripped it out, and taped it on the wall of his or her school library, right next to the place where I’d stand. “Kimberly Brubaker Bradley,” it read, “welcome home.”

shop Dogs and Someone Else’s Story

Yesterday I left home weighted down by a story not my own. I’m on my final week of school visits for the year, and while I love talking to students this particular week is hard on me, mostly because of things that are not my story to tell but make me feel I should be at home.

I flew to Nashville and went to Parnassus Books, which is honestly one of the places other than my home that I feel most at home in the world. It’s a fantastic bookstore, exemplary in nearly every way, but it’s also the first bookstore where I can just barge into the back office and be greeted with, “Yay! You’re back!” My husband didn’t quite understand why I went straight to the bookstore from the airport yesterday, instead of checking into my hotel or shopping or something. But I needed to discuss that evening’s presentation, with excellent authors and friends Linda Williams Jackson and Andrew Maraniss. I need to scout the ARCs. (Snagged a copy of Naomi Novik’s latest!) I needed to look at all the books. I needed to discuss the partnership between Parnassus and the Appalachian Literacy Initiative. And, most crucially for my mood yesterday, I needed to commune with the shop dogs.

I’ve been without a dog since January. It’s been difficult; one of the negative side effects to over-packing my spring schedule (though not the only one) is that there has not been a good time to get a new dog. In fairness to said hypothetical dog, I would need to be in its life for more than five days without leaving for a week. .But the Shop Dogs of Parnassus are always good for a cuddle.

Sadly, that was all I got. The dogs on duty were Frankie and Bear. Frankie is lovely, polite, understands her role as a shop dog and graciously permits me to cuddle her all I wish. But it doesn’t
move her. She has people, and I’m not one of them.


Bear is elderly and stiff. He patrols the shop with dignity. One does not take liberties with Bear. He would permit it, but one would sense the imposition.

I’d really been hoping for Lewis, the hyper enthusiastic floof who’s perfected giving complete strangers full body hugs. Or Mary Todd Lincoln, the long-haired dachshund with dignity to match her name, with whom I have an affectionate long-standing relationship. Or Sparky. Sparky just seems to really like me.

At any rate, I had a lovely evening, with dogs and friends, children and writers. This morning I’ve got a late call at the hotel, so I woke, breakfasted, worked out, got dressed, got ready to go,  sat down and wrote this blog. Next I’ll put on the earrings my girlfriends Tracy, Meg, and Diane gave me, put on my “love mercy” necklace, and go out to brave the world. Xoxo xoxo 

Introducing the Appalachian Literacy Initiative

First let me tell you a story.

Ten years ago I was asked to do a week of school visits in a town near mine, in upper east Tennessee. I was not so much in demand for school visits in those days, and my fee for the week was about what my daily fee is now. Even still, one school asked if I could do a half-day instead, because they very much wanted me to come but couldn't afford the whole day. We messed around with the schedule and I agreed to do two half-days at schools close enough where this was feasible, though the one who'd asked for the half-day in the first place was pretty far out into the country, in a neighboring county. Rural Appalachia. I hate the stereotypes but some of them are rooted in truth.

For this school I dealt with the principal, which was odd--I usually deal primarily with the librarian. Come to find out, this school, grades preK-8, didn't have a trained librarian. They had a part-time teacher's aid with a high-school education who sat in the library three mornings a week, put on a video, and glowered at kids who tried to check out books, because then she'd have to reshelve them, and that was work. I am not kidding.

The library itself was half of the space behind what had once been a theater on the side of the gym, blocked off with plywood. When you climbed the steps to the former stage the first thing you saw was a Pepsi machine. To get to the library you had to walk past the Pepsi machine and through the teacher's lounge. Ancient, dusty books were crammed willy-nilly into ancient, leaning shelves. It felt like despair.

The principal was new and dynamic and trying desperately to change things. She'd gotten a local hardware store to sponsor my half-day visit. When I looked at her proposed schedule I'd realized she hadn't set aside time for booksigning. I suggested adding some. She said, "Oh, honey, these kids aren't going to buy any books."

I took a deep breath. I said that I would arrive with a box of books under the condition that they be given out to the students entirely at random. No books-only-for-good-kids. She agreed.

The kids went nuts. They acted like those books, which were mostly remaindered copies of some of my old titles, were solid gold. One girl ran with hers to the principal's office and put it there for safekeeping, until the end of the day.

The principal, shame-faced, showed me their library. I was horrified. That night I said, "Something has to be done."

My husband said, "It's not your job."

I said, "I know it's not, but it looks like I'm the only one prepared to do it."

So I did. That was my first book project. My son and his best friend earned all the service hours needed for their confirmations that summer by taking boxes of books I weeded from those shelves and carting them to the dumpster behind the school. I solicited donations. I bought new books. I wrapped them in protective covers and categorized them and rearranged the whole damn library and got rid of the Pepsi machine. There were science books and creative nonfiction and easy readers and a lovely selection of middle grade novels. I was so proud of that space when we were done.

I don't know if it made much difference. The principal was thrilled. The teachers, when they returned to school, were astonished.

The school is closed now--budget cuts a couple of years back.

I can still see that library as it was--they had a book on the shelves from the 1950s explaining, "Why We Have Different Races." They had all those old, outdated, racist "Childhood of Early Americans" biographies. They had books about accepting Jesus as your Savior. (I'm all for Jesus, but not on the bookshelves of a public school.)

These were the only books those kids had. There wasn't a public library within 20 miles. There wasn't a bookstore within 30. Every single child in that school was poor. No one was buying new books on Amazon.com.

I could drive through Appalachia today and find a hundred schools just like that one. I was shocked ten years ago; I wouldn't be now. If you're reading this I hope you read the guest post I put up on Tuesday, by Donalyn Miller, about why access to books is so crucial to children. If you didn't read it, please go back and read it now.

On Tuesday we held the first board meeting of a new nonprofit I'm directing. It's called Appalachian Literacy Initiative. We're partnering with Parnassus Bookstore to give low-income schoolchildren in Appalachia the chance to pick out several brand-new high-quality books a year. We're incorporated in the state of Tennessee, and, now that we've had our first board meeting, are ready to apply for nonprofit status. When we receive that it will be backdated to the date we incorporated, March 13, 2018, so donations will be tax-deductible. If you feel so moved, contact me. For now I've put up a gofundme page for initial donations, though we'll mostly be fundraising through different venues.

Thanks for reading. These striking teachers? They really do have something to strike about. Decent educations are a moral imperative. So is access to decent books.

It's Not Complicated: a guess post by Donalyn Miller from Nerdy Book Club

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• @DONALYNBOOKS
• DONALYN MILLER

IT’S NOT COMPLICATED BY DONALYN MILLER

POSTED BY DONALYNM ON APRIL 22, 2018 IN SURPRISE SUNDAY | 21 COMMENTS

I have been blogging, writing, and talking about children’s independent reading lives for over ten years—starting with my first Ask the Mentor column for Education Week Teacher in 2007. I am not the first or the last educator to take on this topic. Scores of literacy leaders, like Daniel Fader, Rudine Sims-Bishop, Stephen Krashen, Teri Lesesne, Alfred Tatum, Richard Allington, Laura Robb, Nancie Atwell, and many more have been fighting for the reading lives of young people their entire careers—long before I came along. The work will continue long after me—led by folks like Pernille Ripp, Cornelius Minor, Kimberly Parker, Sara Ahmed, and Tricia Ebarvia.

Literacy still matters, but the literacy opportunities we provide children have to change. We have to change. The children cannot wait while we figure it out. I know more about the conditions that engage (or fail to engage) children with reading today than I did in 2007. I will continue to evolve in my understanding as I go forward. I don’t have all of the answers, but I am a seeker. Teachers must remain students of our profession for our whole careers. We hold on to what we know as long as it serves kids, and not one minute longer. Our two greatest skills remain kid-watching and reflective practice. Who are my students? What do my students show me they know and need? What have I tried that worked? What have I tried that didn’t? What am I going to do about it?

Here’s one thing I know for certain changes reading for kids.

Everybody knows. We (as a society) just don’t care enough.

It’s all about access.

Access to books increases children’s future prospects and has a significant influence on the level of education they will attain, their productivity, their health, and their quality of life. Buy the books and give them to the kids. It’s not complicated. Why are we making this so hard? It’s frustrating. It’s defeating at times. In one of the richest countries on Earth, we cannot provide all of our children with the books they need. Before you protest about how much it will cost, figure out the cost of not doing it and get back to me. We can provide all of the books children need for summer reading for less than $200 a child (Allington and McGill-Franzen, 2013). The cost to Society for failing to graduate students with strong literacy skills and an orientation towards reading cannot be fully quantified. As author Jennifer Nielsen asked in a recent speech, “Do we understand the societal implications of failing to help kids find the magic of reading? Reading fosters empathy for others.”

I know getting books into kids’ hands isn’t flashy or ground breaking. It’s not new. We’ve been talking about it forever. Unfortunately, we have never successfully provided consistent book access to all children. While we scramble to implement one-to-one laptop programs, we never figured out how to get a paperback into every kid’s hand. Ensuring that all of our children have access to books 365 days a year may not get you in the local paper or earn you superintendent of the year, but it is one act that communicates you care about what kids really need to succeed personally and academically.

Ask yourself:

Who has book access in your community and who doesn’t?

What role does differential book access play in perpetuating systemic, discriminatory educational and social structures?

Who does it benefit to deny meaningful literacy opportunities to some children and not others?

Many of our children live in book deserts without meaningful, consistent access to books at school or home. Children in urban and rural communities—disproportionally children from historically marginalized groups—suffer the worst. They don’t have consistent, quality access to books at school or home, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots widens every day.

A child from a middle income home may have as many as ten access points in their lives where they can find a NEW book to read, including classroom and school libraries, public libraries, brick and mortar bookstores, Amazon one-click ordering, book fairs and subscription services. Children who do not have these resources may have only one or two places they can find a book to read— predominately their school and public libraries. This means that the book access we offer children in school and public library collections must be as varied, relevant, current, and engaging as possible. For many children, this is the only book access in their lives and it has to count.

We also have to consider barriers that prevent all children from access to the books they need and want to read. For many of the children we serve, there are tangible obstacles preventing equitable book access.

Some actions that will increase book access for all children (a starter list):

Determine the factors that might prevent families from using the public library. For many families, access to the public library isn’t “free.” Barriers such as limited services, residency requirements, or location can hinder equitable access. Is your library closed some nights or weekend days? What identification does your library system require to get a library card? What fees and dues are charged? Where is the library located? How hard is it to reach on foot or by public transportation?

Re-evaluate your school and community library fine programs. Last year, the New York Public Library system discovered that blocking check out privileges for patrons who owed $15 or more in fines prevented 20% of NYC children who had library cards from checking out any books. President of the New York Public Library, Anthony W. Marx, knows that poor children lose their book access more often under such policies, “No one is suggesting that people — including children — should not be held responsible for bringing books back. People talk about the moral hazard. But there’s also a moral hazard in teaching poor kids that they will lose privileges to read, and that kids who can afford fines will not.” As a result of these findings, the New York Public Library system announced a fine forgiveness reset for all children under the age of 18 who owed library fines.

Advocate for librarians. Access to librarians increases children’s test scores, closes the achievement gap, and improves writing skills (Lance, 2012). If your librarian is also a technology support specialist or course instructor, they need clerical help to focus more time on reading advisory and less time on paperwork. School Library Journal recently provided these suggestions for fighting library cuts and advocating for librarians. Find more information supporting the effectiveness of school librarians by accessing Scholastic’s School Libraries Work! research brief.

Develop summer reading programs that increase access and book ownership. The best school-based summer reading programs that exist physically put books into the hands of children before they leave for the summer. Book donation initiatives and long-term checkouts from school and classroom libraries guarantee that all children have access to books for summer reading. According to Allington and McGill-Franzen’s research, “…providing self-selected books for summer reading produced as much or more reading growth as attending summer school! For the poorest children the effect of our summer book distribution was twice as large as attending summer school (2013).” Don’t assume that subscribing all students to online databases and computer-based reading programs provides every child access to texts over the summer. Not all children have wi-fi or access to a computer or device at home.

Get rid of reading incentive programs that demotivate children from reading long term or develop internal motivation to read. The research is ubiquitous—incentivizing reading has long-term negative effects on fostering children’s internal motivation to read. I recommend reading and discussing No More Reading for Junk: Best Practices for Motivating Readers by Barbara A. Marinak and Linda Gambrell (Heinemann, 2016) and Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards for more information about the negative consequences of reading incentive programs. Furthermore, summer reading programs that demand children log pages and minutes do little to motivate readers and don’t provide any evidence that reading with comprehension really took place.

Purchase and donate new books whenever possible. Every child should own at least a few new books. When children’s book access is limited to other people’s cast-offs, it is unlikely they are receiving current, nourishing, quality reading material. Book ownership is a powerful factor in the development of positive reading identities. Additionally, when we buy new books, we support the artists who write and illustrate for young people. Blog posts, reviews, and tweets are great, but book sales ensure artists can keep making art. If you read a book in ARC (advanced reading copy) format and you like it enough to recommend it, buy the final book. Review copies are marketing tools to build advance buzz and interest in the book. If we want more books written by authors we love, we need to buy their books. This is particularly important for authors and illustrators from historically marginalized groups, who have already overcome discriminatory obstacles to become published in the first place and may not get a second chance if sales aren’t good enough.

Provide young people access and encouragement to read any text they want in any format they can.There’s abundant research on the benefits and appeal of audiobooks, e-books, graphic novels, serial fiction, picture books, poetry, or any format you can imagine. As a teacher who taught students with a wide range of reading experiences, abilities, interests, and development, I celebrate any format that fosters reading engagement and reading growth. It’s not a competition or hierarchy. The best books for kids are the books they can and will read.

Dedicate your time and resources toward literacy initiatives that put books in kids’ hands—especially kids from marginalized communities. Here are a few literacy organizations and initiatives that I recommend. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Please add the organizations you support in the comments, so we can all learn about them and support them, too.

#1000BlackGirlBooks

Book Love Foundation

LitWorld

National Centers for Families Learning

Reading Is Fundamental

Read With Malcolm

We Need Diverse Books

Evaluate whose voices are missing in your school and classroom libraries. I see article after article bemoaning the poor reading performance of boys and children of color and listing perceived deficits in children and their families as the root cause. What books are young people reading in school? Do all children have the opportunity to see themselves and their families reflected in books? Whose “canon” is valued? Children deserve positive, affirming portrayals of all of their experiences—not just stories of oppression and suffering that perpetuate stereotypes. Lee and Low has a created a list of steps to creating a diverse book collection—a vital evaluation and development process.

I am just getting started, but this post is already 1800 words long, and I have said enough for now. I know that many of you are working every day to increase children’s meaningful, consistent book access. What ideas and resources do you have to share? What obstacles and issues do we need to add to the conversation? Please leave your suggestions in the comments. I look forward to learning from all of you.

Donalyn Miller has taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grade English and Social Studies in Northeast Texas. She is the author of two books about encouraging students to read, The Book Whisperer(Jossey-Bass, 2009) and Reading in the Wild (Jossey-Bass, 2013). Donalyn co-hosts the monthly Twitter chat, #titletalk (with Nerdy Book Club co-founder, Colby Sharp). Donalyn launched the annual Twitter summer and holiday reading initiative, #bookaday. You can find her on Twitter at @donalynbooks or under a pile of books somewhere, happily reading.

On the Bright Side

Today's going to be a crappy day.

I mean that. I'm starting my prep this afternoon for the colonoscopy I'm having tomorrow afternoon. It's a routine screening procedure, so nothing to worry about, except the misery of making sure every inch of my intestines is squeaky-clean for the camera.

I'm in a bit of a funk this morning, despite all the myriad blessings in my life. I was in a funk part of yesterday, too--the 104th day of January, sleet bashing against my office window while I wrestled with my novel manuscript and mostly it kicked my--well. I stuck with it, because writers are people who stick with writing, and also because my publisher seems serious about the deadline, but I would like to point out that at no time yesterday did I feel the slightest flicker of inspiration. Nada. And yet in the end, by sticking it out, I came up with a respectable number of pages that aren't half bad.

I don't do page or word goals, by the way. I'd rather end up with 20 brilliant words at the end of a long day than 1000 crummy ones. But that's just me. All authors work differently.

Anyway, between more time on an airplane (flew up to Chicago to visit my son last weekend, weather was crummy there too but my son oh so lovely, had a great time) and lots of hours in my desk chair, my hips were hurting last night. (I sit cross-legged at my desk. It's not great posture for my hips but I've been doing it forever and am really uncomfortable any other way.) I was half-asleep in bed when I suddenly asked my husband, "You know how my hips are hurting?"

"mmm," he said.

I said, "Do you think there's any chance it's cancer?"

He woke up a bit more. "Kim," he said, "That's your IT band. It's been hurting for twenty years, and if it was cancer you'd have died a long time ago."

That cheered me right up, and I went to sleep.