overdue thanks

I sit this early morning in a hotel room in Boone, North Carolina. I will work here for the next two days. Today is a day in schools and a public library event. Tomorrow I will keynote the Appalachian State University Children's Literature Symposium and work with teachers throughout the day -- exciting!

This fall has been full of travels, and I am overdue on some October thanks. Thanks so much to Mikey Jones at Powhatan Elementary in Boyce, Virginia; Kathy Crane and Joy Simpkins and all those who brought me to W.G. Coleman Elementary in The Plains, Virginia; Carole Butler and her intrepid team at Moorestown Middle School; and Bev Grazioli, Carol Herb, and the Home & School team that brought me to Moorestown, New Jersey's Upper Elementary School --  amazing, insightful days of teaching and learning.

Here you'll see teachers modeling for their students in assembly, teachers telling their own stories in workshop, students writing away in assembly, and projects using Deborah Wiles' books as a jumping off point, and more. 

Every school has its own flavor, needs, goals, and atmosphere. Every journey has its distinct differences as well. Yesterday I drove into the Blue Ridge Mountains as the falling leaves swirled in masses all around me. I took the winding mountain roads as the rain began to fall and the fog crept in, and the dark seeped into the day.

Today I go out into the sunlight to meet new people, see new faces, work with new students and teachers, and discover new stories. And, as always, it's about the stories. Always about the stories.