The Cat Who Lived

Yesterday my daughter (home from college indefinitely thanks to the coronavirus) went out to fill the back water trough. She came back grinning. "Hazel's out here!" she said.

Hazel, oldest of our barn cats, hadn't been seen in a week. This didn't absolutely mean she was dead--she's disappeared for weeks before, most notably when she moved into Molly's barn down the hill--but honestly, eventually, and statistically speaking pretty soon, the cat is going to die, unless she really has traded her soul to the devil in exchange for immortality.

Which those of us who know her think is a strong possibility.

Hazel just may be the meanest cat in Sullivan County, Tennessee. She was born that way.

We moved horses into our brand-new barn on our brand-new farm in April, nearly eighteen years ago. Within a week the mice had followed, attracted by the grain the horses spilled out of their buckets. Within a month the mice were thumbing their noses at me as they pranced past. They were practicing line dances. They had no fear.

We desperately needed a cat.

Now, I have never since had trouble finding cats. Cats show up in my life, uninvited, and stay for years. The barn is currently home to five cats--besides Hazel we have Scout, who we found in a bush; Alex, dropped off at our neighbors' farm and rescued from being eaten by their dogs; Mouse, who arrived in a snowstorm and wouldn't leave; and Bucky, who came because my daughter begged her father for permission to get a kitten. She knew better than to ask me.

Anyhow, back in the day, eighteen years ago, I needed a cat. None of my friends with barns had spares (exceedingly unusual). One of the shelters didn't want their cats to live in barns, and I wasn't willing to lie about it. Another was out of cats. 

After a strange week or two in which I searched for a cat and couldn't find one, and the mice grew ever bolder and more numerous, my dog vet, Tige, called. He said, "I hear you need a cat. We found one outside the clinic."

I went right over, making the mistake of bringing my four-year-old cat-loving daughter. Tige came out to the waiting room cradling a teeny handful of calico floof.

"Tige," I said, "that is not a cat."

He smiled beatifically. Until then, I had not realized he also was a cat-lover. "Oh," he said, "it will be."

My daughter said, "She's beautiful!"

We took her home and named her Hazel. She loved the barn. She persecuted the mice.

She was mean.

My daughter, whom all other cats adore, spent years trying to tame Hazel. It never helped. When I took Hazel in for her kitten shots, she sank her tiny teeth into Tige's wrist, down to the gums. Eventually she'd bitten so many of the vet staff that her file was rimmed round with red tape, a warning. I'd bring her in, howling ferociously from the cat carrier, and the vet staff would take the carrier from me and go into a back room. They'd come out and hand the carrier to me. "She's all done!" they'd say. I never knew exactly what they did--vaccinate her through the holes in the sides?--but it got so that if I showed up at the barn with a cat carrier, Hazel would disappear for a week. After about ten years of struggle, I announced, "that cat has had all the vaccines it's going to get."

The vet's office said, "Good."

When Molly opened her riding school down the hill, Hazel went down and terrorized the children. They'd try to pet her and she'd attack. Eventually Molly put an open can of cat food onto the upside-down lid of a very large Tupperware box. When Hazel came to eat it, Molly slapped the rest of the box on top of her, and brought her back to me.

She hates the other cats. They hate her.

She's old now, thinner and frailer and if anything more beautiful. She's either gotten senile or more duplicitous, as she now comes up to people and rubs against them, purring, like a sweet friendly cat. Then, when they try to pet her, she scratches them.

When I put her photo up yesterday I loved the responses I got. My cat-loving friends who don't know Hazel were thrilled she was safe. Many commented on her sweet little face. Many expressed relief and imagined my anxiety.

Meanwhile, my friend Rosie, who has a barn, suggested aI run with the new hashtag, #notdeadyet. Caroline, who rides with me, said she was happy Hazel was still alive, but wasn't going to start liking her. And Lisa, who's known Hazel for as long as I have, took the last word:

"The meaner they are, the longer they live!"

This cat will be immortal.

About Recording My Books for Your Students

Phew, we're living in interesting times. I hope everyone is staying safe, staying away from each other, and washing your hands. I think we're going to be coping with this virus and its ramifications for far longer than any of us want.

I've gotten a bunch of requests from teachers asking permission to read all or part of one of my novels online to share with their students, who of course aren't in school. As far as I can tell a lot of my other writer friends are getting the same question. I thought it would be easiest to answer this in a blog.

First, you, the teachers, and especially your students, have all our sympathy and concern. As children's book authors we love to have you use our stories to engage your students, and for the most part we wholeheartedly encourage you to do that however you can.

However, please understand that I (I can't speak for all other authors here, but I assume most are the same) can't actually grant you this permission. In the case of my recent novels, audio rights are actually owned by Listening Library. (I own all rights now to my first novel, Ruthie's Gift, so go ahead and record that one if you can find it--but I don't own the audio rights to any of the others.)

Asking Listening Library for permission probably won't get you anywhere, as they're covered up with requests. And everyone understands that these are unique circumstances.

So: in general, it's okay to record a few chapters. It's mostly not okay to record the whole book. It's also okay to record for closed-circuit uses--if you've got a platform that only your students can access, that's much more permissible than sticking your recording anywhere the entire internet can find it.

My suggestion would be to record one chapter at a time on a closed system, then delete chapters so that you're not putting up more than a handful at a time.

I'm also happy to take questions from classes that are still trying to teach any of my books. I can't promise I'll answer everyone, but I'll do my best.  Thanks.

Dear People who ask me questions on Goodreads:

I can't answer them. I don't know why not. Goodreads sends me the questions in emails, then, when I click on the box to answer the question, tells me that the author (me) doesn't exist. If I go into Goodreads to my author page, it asks me for my password, then tells me the password is incorrect. Even when it isn't. Even when I just changed it.

So--if you've got a question that needs an answer, as a recent poster seems to, please go through my website, www.kimberlybrubakerbradley.com. There's a link on the right hand side where you can send me an email. I can answer those.

Mea Culpa: The Dangers of A Single Story

One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is the Danger of a Single Story If you click on that link, it'll take you to a tape of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's brilliant TED talk of the same title. Basically, it's this: if all you ever hear about a place is a single story, you'll think the single story is all there is. You'll miss the breadth and depth and realness.

This was on my mind a lot in India, because the Single Story we hear about India is that it's an exotic, hot country full of poor people who live in slums, many of them beggars, many of them dying. As I walked through India I was reminded of this because to some extent you see what you look for. So I did see people living in slums and on the streets in India. But I also know of homeless people in my hometown. I did see a few beggars in India--but not nearly as many as I've seen in San Francisco. Unlike some of my fellow travelers on that trip, I wasn't stunned that people with far less material goods than me could actually be happy. I tried hard to imagine, any time I was a white woman walking through a sea of brown people, what it would be like if I flipped the scene, and was a brown woman walking through a sea of whites.

Then I came home, all spiritual and woke, and did the exact same thing.

Yesterday I stopped at one of the schools where ALI gave out free books last month, to drop off another box of books. (We're awash with books right now. Most of them are in boxes in my mud room, which looks like I'm a hoarder about to be given my own television show.) The principal of the school spoke with me. She's very grateful we gave her students so many books. And she's dismayed, and rightfully so, about the photograph of her school library I put up on this blog a few weeks ago.

The photograph showed nine books, eight of which were older than me. Here are some things about that photograph that are true:
1) I took it in the school library;
2) I didn't stage it--I neither added nor removed books from the shelf.
3) I was appalled by it.

Here are some things that are also true:
1) It was the worst shelf in the library. I wasn't looking for a typical shelf, or a median shelf--I took and posted the very worst one.
2) It's possible (and I admit this didn't occur to me until the principal pointed it out) that part of the reason the shelf looks so awful and out-of-date is that all the modern books that would be shelved there (the principal said Harry Potter would be a prime example) were checked out.
3) This is the most important point: there is more to that school than that bookshelf.

I wanted to illustrate a point about how poverty affects our public school system. I started ALI in the first place because of the glaring discrepancies between the average performance of low-income students and the average performance of their more affluent classmates. (Richer kids are 2 1/2 times more likely to read proficiently than poorer ones.) I started ALI because the way we fund public schools through property taxes makes me crazy, since it means that our schools in poor neighborhoods have far fewer resources than those in rich ones. (If I could change anything about education, it would be this.) I give out books because I know that poorer kids by and large lack access to them, and that this lack of access is a driving factor in their lower reading levels, and, therefore, chances of later success.

But. Showing only one photograph taken at one point in time told one story about this school: poverty. And that isn't the only story.

Six years ago this particular school ranked in the bottom 10% of public schools in the state of Virginia. This year it was rated one of the top 73 public elementary schools in the entire country. Since there are over one thousand elementary schools in Virginia alone, that's quite an achievement. And, during those six years, the amount of funding the school got didn't change. The demographics of the student body (97% free lunch) didn't change. The staff and teachers poured a lot into that school, and did an awful lot of things right, and have made the students' futures immeasurably brighter. That's a more important part of this school's story than the books in the library.

Here's another thing I didn't realize until after I posted that blog and got some responses: people thought that the photograph could only have been taken in a very low-income school in Appalachia. That it was somehow a regional thing.

I wish that were true, because it would make the problem so much smaller. It's not. Those of you who wrote me from around the country--there are schools like this near you. Really there are. A quick glance at Niche.com--San Francisco, a school that's 73% free lunch, 37% reading proficiency. Chicago, near where my son works--82% free lunch, 32% reading proficiency. Tampa: 82% free lunch, 28% reading proficiency.

There are underfunded public schools everywhere. Most of them have almost no budget for new library books. Some of them have no trained librarians. It's a national disgrace, which is the point I was trying to make, albeit imperfectly.

To the students, teachers, and families of the school whose photo I posted: I apologize. I regret misrepresenting you, and I'll try hard not to do it, not only to you but to any school, again.

And also? Despite the hardships you've had to work with, you're reading at 72% proficiency. Y'all are kicking it. I'm glad to know you.

Dogs of India

I am mostly over being sick. Mentally, I am way WAY over it. Physically--well, I'm on my third different antibiotic, and this one's a weird one but seems to be doing more good than the first two. I took prednisone for more than 30 straight days, a new record for me, and I'm still using some extra inhalers and a few other random things. I'm also still coughing, though not nearly as much or as violently--I'm actually on an airplane as I'm typing this, and I will tell you, just now nobody loves anyone who coughs on an airplane. I've thought about wearing a sign saying "I do not have Coronovirus. Promise." around my neck. So far I've mostly just glared at people.

As I said, I'm over it.

I'm still thinking about how to write about India. India's a very big place--1.6 billion people, a large chunk of land, and cities simply on a different scale and density than we're used to. When we were in Varanasi, our tour guide called it a "small city." I asked what the population of Varanasi was. "About three million," he said.

Mostly when I think about India, I think about gorgeous saturated color. The saris of saffron and deep orange and violet. The open bags of spices in the marketplace, and the piles of vegetables and fruit. The wildly decorated wedding pavilions. The garlands of marigolds.

The other thing I think about is peace. India isn't quiet, but it's peaceful. There's a sense of happiness there. Drivers honk non-stop on the roads--you would too, out of sheer defensiveness-but there isn't a hint of road rage. No one is cursing. Cows wander the streets, placid and happy; people cut grass for them to eat, or offer them water.

Then there are the dogs.

They're everywhere. They look the same--cross a coyote with a fox, you'd get an Indian dog. Medium to short reddish or tannish hair, dark eyes, alert ears. Never barking; almost never jumping on people. May or may not have mange, but always seems to be well fed. They approach strangers politely, even hopefully, but they don't beg. I don't think they have to. Several times I saw people feeding dogs out on the streets. Dogs would come trotting over until a great pack surrounded the person with the food, but all of them waited patiently for their turn. No hostility, no shoving, just a sense of calm.

I grew to really love the Indian dogs. I was fond of the monkeys too. You had to be a bit more careful with them--they're wily thieves not above sneaking into open hotel windows--but they were fun to watch. I asked one of the men working at a hotel what sort of monkeys they were. He seemed surprised by the question. "Just, you know," he said, "basic monkeys."

Yesterday at the Book Fair

I went to India for two weeks. It was extraordinary, and it was complicated, and I'm left with the feeling that I'm not ready to write about it yet. I'll need to break bits down into smaller stories; so far, it's still all one bright swirl in my brain.

The air pollution there was horrific, which I knew going in. I anticipated having a hard time, because my asthma is exceptionally sensitive to air pollution. I actually packed a small air filterer in my luggage--and someone, somewhere, in one of the airport security checks (Atlanta to Amsterdam to Delhi) pried it apart and broke it. It probably would have been a big help, especially during the part where we were on a boat sailing the Ganges, especially as we got close to Kolkata. As it was I got pushed right to the edge of what my lungs can take. If my trip had been any longer I probably would have cut it short. I was as medicated as I could get away from a hospital, and I wore a high-tech mask--even to sleep in, some nights--and my breathing was a mess, and and still is.

I'll get better. But for the first time, I've been somewhere I know I won't go back, unless they fix their air pollution. I liked an awful lot about India and I'd love to explore it further, and I won't, and that's a little sad. I'll write about all of it eventually.

Meanwhile, we've entered into Book Fair Season with a vengeance. Thanks to the whopping grant Appalachian Literacy Initiative received from First Book, we're going into all the schools on the Virginia side of our town, and giving out gorgeous shiny new books.

Yesterday we were at an elementary school, PK-grade 5, a little over 200 students, 98% of whom qualify for free lunch. (At that point, they give everyone free lunch, and breakfast. But imagine it: four kids in the school whose parents make enough money that they don't qualify for free lunch. Four. Kids.) The school is actually doing a great job teaching the students--the principal was away yesterday getting a big national award for how much the school has improved. The teachers and staff are dedicated and proud.

The library is dire. Many of the teachers told me that they have classroom libraries--and we were able to let the teachers all chose a bunch of books for them at the end of the day--but the library--I have no words. I have a photo I took of one of the shelves--I didn't stage the photo, I just took it. Here:

One of those books--not the story, the actual physical book--was printed after I was born. ONE. I'm 52. And while I love A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park's Newbery winner, none of the rest of the books belong on a modern elementary school shelf. 

If you want kids to read well, you have to give them the proper incentive to practice and master the skill. And the incentive that works isn't Accelerated Reader points, free pizzas, improved test scores, or teacher affirmations. It's stories.

We love reading because we love stories.

We're in a golden age of children's literature right now. Some of the best, most vibrant, diverse, exciting books ever written have come out in the last ten years. Where are they in that photograph? They're the missing books, the ones the children should have access to.

So. 

We brought stories.

Each student chose three books to keep.

There's a thing about low-income kids I hadn't realized until yesterday. Their more affluent peers take things like books for granted. A book isn't a big purchase, of course they could have a book. Three books? Great! Middle-income kids can all picture, pretty clearly, what it might be like to be given some books. 

I already knew, of course, that low-income kids face significant challenges in getting access to books. If you can't afford rent, you aren't buying your kids books. If you can't afford school lunches, books probably aren't happening. The public library might be far from where you live, or maybe you can't check those books out anymore because you owe back fines, or because you don't currently have a fixed address. The school library might have shelves like my first photograph. It's why I started ALI; it's why we showed up yesterday with all the beautiful new books.

Anyhow, in nearly every class, when the students came into the library and I gave my speech ("three books, any books, I don't care what you choose or why, take your time") a child would raise their hand, and ask, anxiously, "Money?" Or, "We gotta pay for these?" Or, "We gotta give them back?" When I said, no, free books, no money, no giving them back, it was met not only with cheers, but with relief. These kids know there isn't extra money in their lives. They don't expect to be able to have books.

It was so much fun watching them chose. The photograph above is the big chapter books, but we had shorter chapter books, graphic novels, picture books, and lots of nonfiction. One child gleefully scooped up three books about planets. One black girl saw the book Don't Touch My Hair and said, "Oh, uh-HUH." Kid after kid after kid would select their books, sit down on the library floor, and start reading right away. (I wanted to take photos, but I don't share identifiable photos of children.) When the teachers came after school, to pick out books for their own classroom libraries, several of them reported that they'd given in to student demands and spent the entire afternoon reading. 

One child, walking out of the library, said to another, "This is, like, the best day ever."

So many people have supported ALI. I am beyond grateful to you all. Yesterday was very good. 

You can read more about ALI here and donate to us via PayPal here.

We Need to Talk About MAYBE HE JUST LIKES YOU. And Then Everyone Needs to Read it. All of you.

Not the concept, though that's important too. The book, Maybe He Just Likes You, new this year by Barbara Dee.

Because we women have all heard that line. Back in middle school and high school especially. A boy does something that a girl doesn't like--crosses a boundary in some way. Makes a comment, maybe, or touches without asking. Pays no attention when the girl says no. And the behavior gets excused with the comment, "Maybe he just likes you."

I know how much that line resonates because every time I mention this book to another female, woman or girl, they flinch when they hear the title. They said, "I hated that."

Somehow for generations now we've let boys get away with ignoring girls' boundaries. We've tried hard to teach girls that not only is it okay for boys to do this, we should be happy when they do. We should treat it as a sign of affection--affection that must always be tolerated, no matter whether we return it affection or welcome it or not.

"Maybe he just likes you." What if you don't like him?

The book is a novel, not an instruction manual. It's about a seventh-grade girl named Mila. She's got a sister and a group of friends and a mom who's looking for a new job. She's in the band and she takes martial arts classes. And lately the boys in her class have started doing things that make her feel a little uncomfortable. And then a little more uncomfortable. But it's not really wrong--or is it?

Barbara Dee is someone I'm proud to consider a friend (we did a panel at NCTE together this fall; we're reprising it at the Texas Library Association conference in March) and she let me read a very early copy of this manuscript. I loved it so much I wrote her a quote for the cover. I've been a fan of this book for a very long time, and that's why I had over 50 copies available at ALI's free book fair last week, for our local middle school with a total of about 500 sixth through eighth graders. Some of the copies I bought through First Book, whose grant made the book fair possible. Some I begged from the publisher when First Book ran out of stock.

We needed every single one of them.

Middle school students not only need this book, they KNOW they need this book. They want help navigating boundaries and consent. They want to know what to do when they or someone else has gone too far; they want to know what "too far" means. Do they have the right to shut someone else's behavior down? What if someone really does like them? Are they allowed to say no?

We had so many good books at that fair. I was so proud of the diversity and quality and breadth of genre and style. Tracy, my partner in crime, said I looked giddy as we laid out the final copies. I didn't feel giddy. I felt right--like I was doing exactly the work I was supposed to be doing in the world.

The first groups to come in were eighth graders. The very first class, several of the girls picked up Maybe He Just Likes You. (Boys should read it too--but the girls were drawn to it.) Then--this is the part I hadn't expected--those girls talked about the book. Told other girls about the book. Before lunch. So that, as the later classes came in, girls walked right up to me at the start, and said, "Where's 'Maybe He Just Likes You'? Because I want a copy of that."

We had Brown Girl Dreaming, Lalani of the Distant Sea, My Jasper June. Halfway Normal, Raymie Nightingale, Beverly Right Here. Lumberjanes, Real Friends, Ms. Marvel, Pictures of Hollis Woods. (Okay, that one also surprised me with its popularity--until a kid held it up to me and said, 'in foster care. Like me.') We had well over 100 different titles. We had complete free choice--if I ran out of a title kids wanted, I could almost always order more.

Twenty percent of the girls in that middle school chose as one of their three books 'Maybe He Just Likes You.'

Teachers. Your students are telling you something. They need to read this book.