Arizona Part 4 - Book Signing and Banquet

Here's Arizona part 4. The final chapter, and the final post before Blogging for Mom goes on summer break. Boo-hoo. Well, here goes. Tuesday night Mom was going to accept her award. But Mom had done something she had never done before... procrastinated! She hadn't written an acceptance speech and she had like one hour to get ready! So as I calmly watched a movie, Mom frantically wrote her speech.

Before the awards ceremony, there was a huge book signing for all the authors who had won the award or gotten an honor. So, before that, Mom had to have her speech ready. She told me that she had tried writing it loads of times but it never came out right. Finally she finished the speech. Hallelujah! She was all dressed up, and she was ready for the signing, so she left our room. Five seconds later she came back because she had forgotten something. She was panicked because she was already like five minutes late! So she left again. And came back. And left. And came back. She did this three more times and then finally left for good. Dad and I thought it was really funny!

After the signing was the banquet and awards ceremony. Guess who Mom sat next to at the table! Sydney Taylor's daughter! Mom was really excited. People kept coming up to Mom and congratulating her. It was cool. Dad was sitting next to me and one of Mom's friends, Esme Raji Codell, author of Sahara Special and Vive La Paris. She's really nice and funny.

Well, Mom got through her acceptance speech, it was a fun night, and now... A PHOTO GALLERY!

Mom getting her Sydney Taylor Award from Rachel Kamin

Esme Raji Codell, Jennifer Roy, and Mom with their Sydney Taylor Awards

Mom the morning after

And here's Big Daddy! Note: He did not pose like this for the picture, we just caught him like this!

I'll talk to all of you in six weeks!

Arizona Part 3 - Mom's Presentation

Welcome to Arizona part 3. Tuesday morning Mom gave a presentation to a bunch of librarians who belong to AJL. There were a couple authors in the audience, too. I've seen Mom do her presentation a lot of times so I wasn't that keen to see it again. But Mom said she was doing a different presentation this time, one she had never done before, so I went along. Another great feature--she said most of her presentation was going to be reading from her diaries! Oooooh! She never lets anyone read her diaries, and I've always wanted to know what's in them!

She had marked with post-its some pages in her various diaries (which she has like 20 of) which she read to the crowd. Every few sentences, the crowd roared with approval! At the end of her presentation, she got a standing ovation from loads of people. It was amazing!

That's it for now. Stay tuned for the last chapter of the Arizona quadlogy. Is that a word? It's like a trilogy, but it's four parts. If it's not a word, it should be.

Arizona Part 2 - First Night

So, welcome to Arizona part 2. To start you of where we left off, we went into our room, unpacked, messed around for a while and then went out to dinner. The dinner. OH MY GOD! I had never been to a more delicious and extremely fancy place in my life. It was called the Ocean Club. We got in there and Dad--who had already been there once--said there was something called the Seafood Tower. First of all it was an appetizer, but you could've made a whole meal from it. Second of all, you got to pick what was in it, from shrimp to crab legs to lobster, and how many stories it was. Yeah, stories. We ordered a one story Tower. Holy Cow. One story was enough for ten people. I could barely finish the meal (I shared Dad's steak and lobster). It was SOOO good. My favorite part was the bread basket. They had these pretzel rolls that were the best thing ever. I wanted to take them to go, but Mom and Dad said no.

When we got back into our room, we washed up and then I went to sleep in a HUGE bed with big white fluffy pillows and blankets. Of course, my dad complained that his bed was too small to have him and Mom in. But I didn't really care.

Part 3 - Mom's presentation - coming soon.

Arizona Part 1-The Arrival

Well, Faith and Jacob are off at camp in Wisconsin, and I got to go to Arizona with my mom and dad. We went halfway around the country for Mom to accept the Sydney Taylor Book Award. I know she won the award a while ago, but this was the annual convention for the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL). First things first, though... a disclaimer: I didn't witness all of the excitement (How can you go to a resort without spending some time in the pool?) but I was there for most of it.

Nice, huh?

When we first got to the resort, there was a table for all of us to get these badge things. Mom's said Brenda Ferber Winner of Sydney Taylor Award. It also had two ribbons hanging from it that said Author and Presenter. Mine said Sammy Ferber Son of Sydney Taylor Winner. How cool is that?! I had a ribbon that said Guest. And lastly, Big Daddy's said Alan Ferber Guest. He had a Guest ribbon, too.

Oh, yeah, Sammy's in the house!

Also as soon as we got there, a man came up to us with a plateful of huge cookies. He called himself Mr. Temptation. He was offering everyone some of the cookies. They were amazing!!!!! Fresh from the oven and even better than Mom's. Sorry, Mom!

That's all for part one, stay tuned!

Beautiful Flower, Beautiful Song

Having a mom who is also an author means she is always giving me great books to read. Usually, though, when it comes to music, Mom is way uncool. But last week, Mom found an amazing song for me. It is called Beautiful Flower by India.Arie. She wrote it for the girls at Oprah's school in Africa. The song is inspirtational and beautiful. Here are the lyrics:

This is a song for

Every girl who's
Ever been through something

She thought she couldn't make it through

I sing these words because

I was that girl too

Wanting something better than this

But who do I turn to?

Now we're moving from the darkness into the light

This is the defining moment of our lives

Cuz you're beautiful like a flower

More valuable than a diamond

You are powerful like a fire

You can heal the world with your mind and

There is nothing in the world that you cannot do
When you believe in you

Who are beautiful, yeah you

Who are brilliant, yeah you

Who are powerful, yeah you

Who are resilient

This is a song for

Every girl who

Feels that she is not special

Cuz she don't look like a supermodel coke bottle

The next time the radio tells you

To shake your money maker

Shake your head and tell them

Tell them you're a leader

Now we're moving from the darkness into the light

This is the defining moment of our lives

Cuz you're beautiful like a flower

More valuable than a diamond

You are powerful like a fire

You can heal the world with your mind and

There is nothing in the world that you cannot do

When you believe in you

Who are beautiful, yeah you

Who are brilliant, yeah you

Who are powerful, yeah you

Who are resilient, yeah you

Who are beautiful, yeah you

Who are brilliant, yeah you

Who are powerful, yeah you

Who are resilient, yeah you

This song is for you, yeah you

This song is for you, yeah you

This song is for you, yeah you

Yeah you

You are brilliant

Amazing, right? The song is my theme song and is great for every girl. You can buy the song on iTunes. All profits from the song go towards the school. So go and buy it!!!!

This is my last entry before camp. But Sammy will post from the Sydney Taylor Awards Banquet in Scottsdale. Yay Mom!

See you August 9th!

Printer's Row Book Fair

So yesterday, my family went to Printer's Row Book Fair in Chicago. Mom was speaking there. (She's on the left in the picture above.) She was on a panel with three other authors. I thought that I would be really bored sitting through all of the talking. I was surprised to find myself actually liking it. Lorijo Metz was hilarious. I loved listening to her speak. Did you know she wrote an e-mail to herself pretending to be a publisher accepting her picture book? Then she even replied to herself, too! Mom always gave really good and in depth answers to all of the questions. Gail Piernas-Davenport was a mix of Mom and Lorijo. Giving humorous but detailed answers. Deborah Ruddell was different than everyone else because her book was a collection of poems. She seemed really peaceful and down to earth.

One thing that amazed me about every single panelist and also Esther Hershenhorn, the moderator of the panel, was that they all seemed very happy and optimistic. Not one of them was negative about having to wait forever to have their book come out. They laughed about it and focused on the positive aspects instead. I thought the experience of listening to these first time authors was amazing because it really taught me to maximize the good in my life and minimize the bad. Great job to everyone!

Even Award-Winning Authors Miss Their Deadlines Sometimes!

Like mother, like daughter, they say. Well, Mom and I are different in lots of ways, but we both recently had to deal with deadline issues.

In school, our 4th quarter project for Language Arts was one of the best assignments I could ever imagine. We were to write a children's book about and for an important younger kid in our lives. I wrote mine for my cousin, Adam, the smartest and funniest five-year-old I've ever known. When we first found out about this project, everybody was really excited. About 3 or 4 weeks before the end of school though, we had still not gotten any information about the book. Mrs S., my teacher, assured me that the whole project would be done in school and we would have plenty of time.

Well, here we were in the last week of school when all heck broke loose. Everyone in my class freaked out because a) we had to finish up our project and didn't have nearly enough time and b) people were confused about the deadline. Our class voted to not watch The Outsiders movie Monday and Tuesday to work on our books. Then, Mrs. S. told us the book was due Monday. How could we have the book be due Monday but be working on it Monday and Tuesday? Confusing??? I think so!

Well I asked around, and people said they were just going to finish anyways for Monday, just in case. I didn't panic about finishing the book for Monday because I figured everyone else would have nothing to do in school and I would. I talked to my friend about this and she agreed. So, we both didn't finish our books for Monday. (Yes, I can hear you now, Mrs. S. "Look at the Homework Hotline if you're confused about deadlines." But I haven't looked at the Homework Hotline all year!)

Turns out, EVERYBODY but my friend and me finished their books. They were all laughing at us and telling us how much trouble we were going to be in. My friend decided we should just talk to Mrs. S. to let her know so we wouldn't get in trouble in front of the whole class later that morning. I was too scared, and I totally chickened out. So my friend went in to talk to her without me. She came in late to homeroom and mouthed to me, "We're screwed."

As we walked to her classroom, Mrs. S. came outside with a clipboard and didn't let us into the classroom until we told her whether or not we had our book. When my friend and I told her we didn't have our book, she told us to get our materials and wait outside. Then she sent us to the Principal's office!

I got really scared when we headed for the Principal's office because I thought we were going to get in a lot of trouble. It actually wasn't bad at all. We just went into a room and worked on our books. Even though my friend and I both finished our books by the next day, Mrs. S. graded us based on what we had completed on Monday. So guess what? I ended up getting a D+ on the book. She wouldn't even look at my rough draft.

My mom says that if she were the teacher she would have graded my rough draft and then marked me down a letter grade for turning the finished book in late. (Too bad Mom doesn't get to make those decisions.) It's not like I turned it in a week late. I turned it in the next morning! In another way, I'm okay with the D+ because as long as Adam likes it, I'm happy. But note to self for seventh grade... Be absolutely certain about due dates!

My mom is also having deadline problems. She was supposed to be done revising Jemma Hartman this week. She realized there was going to be no way she would finish on time. She e-mailed her editor and asked for an extension on her deadline. Her editor was NICE and gave her until the end of the summer. Now my mom thinks she will definitely finish on time.

When I told my mom about what happened with my book she said I could have told my teacher, "Even award-winning authors miss their deadlines sometimes!"

Important announcement: Sammy and I are going to camp for the summer. If anyone would like to guest-blog for our mom while we're gone, leave us a comment. Come on family and friends... you all have unique perspectives of Mom that you can share. Blogging is fun.

And one more announcement: Coming soon: Sammy is going with Mom to Arizona when she receives the Sydney Taylor Book Award, so he'll post all about it here!