Yesterday I finished up a downright scary ghostwriting deadline, during which I justified quite a few questionable decisions (i.e. I need energy; I’m going to have another large coffee and a candy bar). Now that the deadline is behind me, I’m trying to turn over a new (and vitamin-packed) leaf. Here’s a look at five healthy things I did today:
1) I had a reasonably healthy (somewhat weird) breakfast: yoghurt and two pieces of rye bread. It was blackberry yoghurt so it reminded me of various folksy stories about the blackberry bushes behind my grandfather’s house when I was a kid. Like the time I stepped on a nail back there.
2) I got mad pillz. I took two Omega 3 fish-oil pills and a multivitamin. I’ve been taking the fish-oil pills ever since my last check-up—when my doctor told me that my cholesterol was bordering on cho-more-terol—but the multivitamin is new. I bought a bottle of 100 yesterday, so I’ve got 99 to go—sing it with me!
3) I went for a run in Prospect Park. According to my iPod, I ran 3.75 miles at a rate of 8:51 per mile and burned 547 calories. That’s the equivalent of a king-size chocolate bar (the calories, I mean; I run much faster than a king-size chocolate bar).
4) Instead of buying a big thing of water after my run, I got coconut water. Have you ever read the nutrition label on that stuff? If it had any more minerals in it, it would actually be a rock.
5) And I put on suntan lotion before I ran, which is always a good idea. That way, my face only turns bright red because I’m in deplorable shape, not because it’s burned.
My plan is to incorporate these things into a longer overall list, called either the Good Health List (abbreviated GoHL and pronounced like “goal” but with less enthusiam) or the I May Not Look Like Much But I’m Trying List (abbreviated IMNLLMBITL and pronounced exactly how it’s spelled).
I had a fantastic time at the Hudson Children’s Book Festival yesterday. Of course, the one time I had to get up at 5:20 am to catch the train to Hudson was the one time my neighbors decided to hold Crazy Salsa Dance Party until 3 am. So, yeah, no sleep, but the festival was so full of big crowds and positive vibes (and free coffee) that energy was not an issue. The highlight: My friend Jerry Craft introduced me to Walter Dean Myers, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Jerry, who I worked with for years at Sports Illustrated Kids, snapped this picture of the Ambassador and I:
I scrolled through my extensive collection of blinks, half blinks, and goofy grins for something special, as befits the occasion. I call this look Baby Mole’s First Day of Life. Still, I kind of love this picture, and I’m glad I have it to remind me of meeting a great (and gracious) man at a amazing event. Also, I slept 10 hours last night.
This video is pretty awesome. This guy is texting while walking and nearly stumbles over a large bear. Heads up, dude. The world is an interesting place. You might want to pay attention.
Interesting legal note: One step more and the bear would have been allowed to eat him.
I will be reading/talking/signing and otherwise holding it down on a folding chair like nobody’s business this Saturday, April 28. The location is NYC’s Books of Wonder, one of the best children’s bookstores on the planet earth, and the occasion is their “Great Middle Grade Reads” event. There will be five authors, only one of which will be me (no disguises this time—that wig is itchy!). The others:
The ever-awesome MARYROSE WOOD, author of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Book III The Unseen Guest
The delightful MARIE RUTKOSKI, author of The Jewel of the Kalderash
SARVENAZ TASH, who has a cool name and penned The Mapmaker and the Ghost
R.J. POLACIO, whose Wonder is the book of the middle grade moment and has been recommended to me by like 84 people. So why haven’t I read it yet? Because I am going to get a signed copy at the event, of course!
The title is also highly (wonderfully!) appropriate for the store: entire layers of wonder! Here’s what Oasis has to say about it:
Saturday is gonna be the day that Michael’s gonna read for you
By now you shoulda found out the event goes from 12 till 2
I don’t believe I have to mention that there will be: cupcakes, wow!
Back beat, it’s on 18th Street and the 1 train goes right there
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before but it’s a short walk from Union Square
I don’t believe I have to mention that there will be: cupcakes there
And all the roads you’d have to walk are straight-ish
And all the books on the bill are great-ish
And . . . it all kind of breaks down after that (“And after all, you can get Wonder signed”?), which I attribute to Liam probably being drunk again. But you get the idea, right? Saturday at Books of Wonder! Go! Go like the wind!
If you think I’m spending the next month doing something other than traveling all over God’s Green Earth promoting Plunked, then you are sorely mistaken. You can take aspirin for the soreness, but the mistakenness can only be cured by reading this blog. Herewith:
Read Local Red Hook
It all starts Saturday, April 14, at Read Local Red Hook in upstate New York. Red Hook is next to Rhinebeck and the event is quarterbacked by ever-awesome Oblong Books. I grew up buying Smiths cassettes, Dungeons & Dragons modules, and John Ashbery collections from their other store, in Millerton, and they held an event with David Levithan, Libba Bray, Eliot Shrefer (and yours truly) last year in Rhinecliff that was downright astounding. Anyway, I heart them, now and 4eva. Normally, I’d go up to Salisbury a few days early and drive over, but The Deadline, I am on it, so I’m taking a more heavily trained approach and Amtraking it up and back. I’m on a panel with awesome authors Jennifer Castle, Robin Palmer, and moderator Nancy Castaldo. The theme is “trauma and drama,” which is, of course, also the title of my as-yet-unwritten memoir. I expect to see you there, All of Poughkeepsie!
Texas Library Association
I have a lot of Chuck Norris on my site lately—how can that be bad?!
I’ll be in Houston for the TLA’s annual conference from Tuesday, April 17, to Thursday, April 19. Why? Because Texas librarians rock, OK? They frickin’ rock. Their support has been a huge (Texas-size) factor in my career as a writer. In fact, they are a big reason why I have a career as a writer and am not, for example, selling fish from a cart on Coney Island Avenue. Well, OK, I do that sometimes, but it’s just so I can work “fishmongering” into conversations. (Q: “Why do you smell so funny, Michael?” A: “I’ve been fishmongering!”) But perhaps I digress.
I’ll be taking part in an incredible event at Blue Willow Bookshop on the 18th, speaking on the Middle School Matters panel with Sarah Mlynowski (super-cool, even by Canadian standards) and Augusta Scattergood (there is a movement to change the spelling of awesome to Ausome, just because of her) on the 19th, and doing a million and eight things in between. Basically, if you are there, you are liable to see me. And you should be there, All of Texas!
Hudson Children’s Book Festival
Won’t you spout literacy with me?
On Saturday, May 5, I’ll be at the Hudson Children’s Book Festival. This will be my third year at the HCBF, and I Do Not Do Things Three Times If They Are Not Amazing—I Am Not An Idiot! I could tell you all about it, or I could let the kids and teens of Hudson do so, awesomely.
For continuity, I should end this item: And you should be there, All of Hudson! But I know from experience that All of Hudson will be there. The pressure is now on you, Outlying Communities!
Anyway, throw in a few middle school visits (I’d invite you, but you’d never make it through security) and a Wonderful event in NYC (hint, hint) that I’ll have more on later, and that’s that. I hope to see you out there, All of the Internet! (Or at least three or four of you and maybe a few LOLcats. I mean, come on, I got a haircut for this!)
It’s opening day of the baseball season, the Sox have as good a chance as anyone, and my book is in USA Today. Hot-frickin-dog, people. Bob Minzesheimer, the paper’s esteemed book critic, gives Plunked 3.5 stars (out of 4) and calls it a “kid-smart novel” and “an entertaining story about how the games we play can be mental as well as physical.”
I’m up in my hometown, for a school visit tomorrow in Litchfield, so I walked into the Salisbury Pharmacy this morning and bought two copies (out of 3). I’ve been going to that place my whole life. I used to spend my allowance on candy bars there—back when they were 25 cents! (Actually 27 cents with tax, and those two cents really hurt back then. What was I, made of pennies?)
There’s even a scene in Plunked that takes place in a (barely) fictionalized version of that pharmacy. Add it all together and picking up those papers was an oddly profound moment for me—it was all I could do not to break down and confess all of this to the lady behind the counter. Fortunately, I held it together. I think it helped that I was also buying deodorant.
Christopher Stengel’s awesome cover art
is above the fold!
Anyway, it’s on page 4D, along with a big picture of the cover. I think it’s awesome. But that’s just my two cents.
Sunday: I have to say it was a good day. I even messed around and got a triple-double. And if you can’t bring yourself to accept old school rap lyrics from this particular author, I hope you’ll at least allow me to extend the sports metaphor.
1) Plunked scored some points in the April issue of School Library Journal. The reviews have been fantastic so far, but I think this is the best one yet:
Well-developed characters and a strong narrative voice make this novel about much more than baseball. Jack Mogens is ready for his sixth season of Little League. He has a good arm, he’s a decent hitter, and he thinks he has a shot at being the starting left fielder for the Tall Pines Braves. But when he gets hit during the first game and ends up being treated for a mild concussion, his lack of confidence about inside pitches turns into real trepidation. Nightmares about being frozen in place as the ball comes toward his head don’t help matters, and he finds himself trying to hide his fear of batting from the rest of the team. Things only get worse after a vindictive teammate drills him in the ribs during practice, and suddenly Jack is making excuses to his coach, his parents, and his friends about why he can’t play. He seriously considers quitting the team, even though it has been an integral part of his life and his friendships over the years. Throughout the story, as he relates events during the school day and outside of the practices and games, his self-effacing humor is pitch-perfect for a sixth grader. But it is during his soul-searching about whether he can move beyond his fears that the adolescent poignancy and lack of confidence really come through. The dialogue is fresh, the pace moves nicely, and readers will enjoy seeing how Jack finally manages to get his head and his heart back into the game.–Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
2) I got a major assist from Books of Wonder in NYC, where 67 amazing authors and a cast of indomitable employees staged a signing for the ages—specifically, the ages 8 to 18. The mega-signing was mostly for YA authors (I’m one of those too), but a few of us also dutifully signed our new middle grade novels. Here is a not entirely credible picture of me signing both Plunked and Trapped sign-ultaneously:
3) And speaking of Trapped, my previous book rebounded nicely from a string of marginal slights—my divided attention and the end of winter, mainly—with a round of amazing news. It was named to the Young Readers’ Choice List in Pennsylvania and the Readers’ Choice List in Virginia. Not to overstate the case, but my book is doing extremely well in the swing states and has a shot at the presidency. OK, maybe that’s a bit much, but these lists (like the Tayshas in Texas) mark the intersection of two of my favorite groups eva: librarians and young readers. Both of whom will be awarded new cabinet-level positions in my administration.
Listen, I don’t know what you did on November 15, 2008, but I met Suzanne Collins and she signed my copy of The Hunger Games, so unless you were saving the world (or in line with me), you are, I’m sorry to say, a tremendous slacker. The book came out in October of that year, so as I was removing it from the shelf this morning I thought: Hey, I wonder if it’s a first edition? Hahaha, Michael! Hahaha! That’s the kind of small-minded thinking the world expects (and scorns) from authors not named Collins or Rowling. It is a fourth edition. Still, it is awfully nice:
And here’s a closer look:
Do you like the artwork under the signature? It’s from a rubber stamp. Suzanne (what? I met her!) had a little box of them and, as she met each person, she decided which one was right for them. She was delightful and gracious, and when Scholastic mega-publicist Sheila Marie Everett introduced me as a fellow author, I darn near died of some strange combination of embarrassment, pride, and How-did-I-get-here? wonderment (my first book was still about six months from publication).
This all took place at the ever-amazing Books of Wonder, here in NYC. The receipt is still in the book, faded almost beyond legibility. I can just make out the basic details. The time was 11:57 am, the clerk was the delightful Mary, and the sales tax was 8.375 percent—$1.51 straight to the Capitol!
Anyway, it was awesome. And since it’s a rainy Sunday—and The Hunger Games movie has achieved almost total (and somewhat ironic) domination of the nation’s attention—it seems like it might be a good day to reread it.
Technically, it’s a minor league baseball jersey for the Reading (PA) Phillies, the AA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. In practice (so to speak), it’s a baseball jersey with “Reading” written across the front. I like to pretend the other teams in the division are the Mathematics Mariners, History Pirates, and Science Rays, but I guess that’s changing the subject. Anyway, check it, yo:
I call this look “Blue Steel”…
Clearly, context matters. At an “R-Phils” game, this jersey is the height of fashion. In NYC, not so much. Is it sporty? Dorky? It is both: It’s sporky! I got it for school visits. How cool am I going to look, rolling into an elementary school near you wearing this bad boy? Very. At least until the fifth graders beat me up in the stairwell. (They’re like piranhas: harmless individually but ferocious in schools!)
Approximately what I looked like out there: a 1-to-1 ratio
of sputter to zoom.
Day of run: Wednesday, March 21, around 2 pm
Weather at start: 64 and hazy
Weather at finish: 67 and sweaty
Route: Prospect Park loop
Stats: 3.76 miles in 32:44 (8:43/mile); 537 calories burned.
Best animal seen: A pit bull with a spot around one eye, like Pete the Pup from The Little Rascals. Pete is an excellent reminder that, before pit bulls were considered bad news, they were considered great pets: loyal, energetic, and perfect for kids. Guess what? Pit bulls haven’t changed.
Back then, this was considered mistreating a pit bull…
Best song on the mix: Two Cousins by Slow Club. This is one of my favorite songs from last year, and “Slow Club” is an ideal band for a runner like me.
Random pseudo-philosophical thought: This category made sense when I first started doing Jog Logs a few years ago. Since then, I’ve joined Twitter. More often than I care to admit, the most cogent, well-formed thought I have at the end of a run is a tweet or status update about something I saw. (Today’s tweet is the title of this post.) It makes me wonder if these are just the latest frames we’re pouring our thoughts into—the way, in another time and place, someone might have returned home with a haiku in mind (or at least a limerick)—or if the internet is fundamentally rewiring our minds. #asaddictionshavebeenknowntodo
