Things I Love Thursday

Oh, how I love Karen Cushman!

Her writing is so much fun to read.

She's all about WORDS.

Glorious, creative words.

And talk about good insults!

I thought Elvis (The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis) was pretty good at insulting.

I mean, bug-brained booger breath is pretty good, right?

But Elvis can't hold a candle to Meggy Swann (The Alchemy and Meggy Swann).

Exhibit A:

wart-necked flap maggot

penny pinching nip cheese

milk-livered minnow

mewling flap-mouthed flax wench

Cease your bibble babble, you gleeking goat's bladder.

And when she isn't busy insulting, Karen Cushman is tossing out words like:

skimble skamble

marble-hearted

beslubbered

I love this book.

NCTE Recap

Only one word to say about the NCTE conference in Boston: wow!

I met so many teachers, Twitter friends, Facebook friends, authors, etc. 

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

 Kirby Larson, Karen Cushman and I presented a program on Creating Story Worlds. We were so psyched to see such a great group of teachers who came to listen.

It was so nice to see some of our favorite Nerdy Book Club friends right there in the front row. Thanks, pals.)

Afterwards, we celebrated.

(l to r) Karen Cushman, Kirby Larson, Miriam Martinez (panel moderator), Nancy Roser (panel moderator)

 Throughout the conference, I ran into so many teacher friends and had lunch with my pal, Patrick Allen.

(clockwise from top left) Donalyn Miller, Patrick Allen, Colby Sharp, Katherine Sokolowski, Paul Hankins)

(top row l to r) Cindy Minnich, Cynthia Alaniz (bottom l to r) Megan Ginther, Holly Mueller

Karen Terlecky, Kirby Larson and I got to recreate our selfie from NCTE in Orlando in 2010. We haven't changed a bit!

Here we are again:

 

 There was lots of fan girl time with some of my favorite authors.

Karen Cushman

Kirby Larson

Tanya Lee Stone

Deborah Wiles

Linda Urban (and Loree Griffin Burns was there, too. Where'd she go?)

Laurie Halse Anderson

 AND, I scored an Advanced Reader Copy of Laurie's new book. Look what she wrote! Sweet? SWEET! (I'm not sure everyone would agree with that, but I'll take it.)

Special thanks to Colby Sharp and Jenni Holm for hosting the super fun Nerdy Book Club party!

P.S. The only negative: My Cafe Francais (aka according to Kirby: "That evil concoction") spilled into my suitcase. 

Don't insult me like that

Oh, how I love Karen Cushman!

Her writing is so much fun to read.

She's all about WORDS.

Glorious, creative words.

And talk about good insults!

I thought Elvis (The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis) was pretty good at insulting.

I mean, bug-brained booger breath is pretty good, right?

But Elvis can't hold a candle to Meggy Swann (The Alchemy and Meggy Swann).

Exhibit A:

wart-necked flap maggot

penny pinching nip cheese

milk-livered minnow

mewling flap-mouthed flax wench

Cease your bibble babble, you gleeking goat's bladder.

And when she isn't busy insulting, Karen Cushman is tossing out words like:

skimble skamble

marble-hearted

beslubbered

I love this book.

Thank you, Kirby.