Carole Marsh Blog

Savannah in November

Kathleen is my guest blogger for the Savannah Children's Book Festival, which, alas, I missed, since I was at the Dahlonega LIterary Festival...it's that time of year!

---

He was getting away. I jogged through the slow-moving crowd blocking the wide sidewalks leading to the elegant fountain in Forsyth Park.

 He was a giant duck. I think. A character at the annual Savannah Children’s Book Festival. An enormous, rotund, fuzzy yellow duckling. In what appears to be a blue sailor suit.

Fairly out of shape, I do not cut a graceful figure in motion. No doubt I looked as dignified running as the duck I was chasing.

This is one of those odd, reflective moments that makes a person ponder his position in life, and how he got there. Did I see adult self, say, 15 years ago, anything like I see myself today?

The overnight trip had begun a little rough, having only found out the Monday previous that we would be attending. On the office calendar for the 17^th, the festival was actually one week earlier. Plans had to be changed, hotel reservations made, expenses acquired. But we (Paige, Carole Marsh’s assistant) and I made it. The pieces fit together; we had everything we needed, the car held up under the 4-hour drive, and they still have those awesome barbecue nachos (try it and believe) at a favorite Savannah restaurant.

In spite of the chorus of police officers, hotel staff, and street signs repeating, “no, you can’t park here” amid the rest of the town’s Saturday morning traffic-generating activities (farmer’s market, art festival, Veteran’s Day Parade, three weddings we saw from the street, plus something called a “Zombie Walk”) I consider this a vacation.

I got my picture. And it’s adorable. It will remind me of the lovely day in the park, and the lively week leading up to it. Savannah is one of those old cities that anyone can go home to. I thank them for having us!

Until next year!

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been a blessed year for me and I hope it has for you, as well.

Bob's health has been more good than bad...and that's a good thing!

My lovely brother-in-law Paul looks better than ever (Botox for medical reasons has some wonderful side effects!)  My daughter and son have lovely new homes and all those grandkids are well, happy, beautiful, and well-behaved!  My company has had a good year in spite of ongoing difficulties in the economy and the myriad of changes on the educational landscape.  Our employees have worked hard and held down the fort to weather all these changes.  Bob and I sold two homes and downsized to one, which feels really great.  Most friends, old and new, are doing well; we try to keep up with them, near and far.

We attend two lovely churches and are blessed to give back as best and often as we can.  Our personal assistant, Paige, has been a trooper through a rather wild professional and personal year.  We have not lost any weight this year, but we have not gained any either; imagine that!

Although the weather has been quite dramatic across America, we have dodged most bullets, for now.  We have lovely and loving sons- and daughters-in-law.

We live in America.  We got to vote.  Our soldiers still stand guard for us, at home and abroad, although all of us pray for peace and no more war.

I got to write a lot, read some great books, and take the "trip of a lifetime" to Venice, Paris, and Normandy.  I have a beautiful sister who also has beautiful children. I am on "this side of the grass" as a friend exclaims with wonder each day.  I have all I need and some to share.  What would I complain or whine about?

I feel sure most of you agree with this.  We are a blessed nation and people, in spite of the threat of a Fiscal Cliff, and whatever else it is we worry about.

We have freedom of speech, which allows me to write what I want, to whom I want, when I want.  I have fans, lots of them, most ages 6-12...and that's a real blessing, too.

So you have a happy Thanksgiving, too.  I am sure I will find time to eat too much and, hopefully, sleep too late, but I do not plan to find time to whine...about anything.  Join me!

Like family,

 Carole

 

Le bonbons ou la mort!

Le bonbons ou la mort!...that's what I learned to say in France:  "Trick or Treat!"

I do not think of myself as cynical; the opposite, in fact. But when Tanja our travel agent kept repeating "The Trip of a Lifetime"..."The Trip of a Lifetime!"..."THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME!" - I was highly cynical.  What did that mean, exactly?  I was very busy, so except for a few yes or no questions and giant colorful books of places I was too busy to look at or even fathom, Tanja pretty much took my credit cards and put our "Trip of a Lifetime!" into her own hands.

But, you know—Tanja was the first person we toasted at each and every stop, because...Tanja was right. It was the trip of a lifetime.  

Things got off to a very rocky start at Charles de Gaulle airport  with an interminable dawn walk through packed terminals, security, passport, up and down lifts and escalators in search of the missing Gate 43, waved off the last bus to our plane idling on the tarmac, into something akin to a paddywagon where we were strapped in, locked in, and left...until the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo finally showed up and sped us out into a lightning-laced storm, past our plane, then left us again; a few bumpy moments later we found ourselves raised from the dead and released right into the back cargo door of the waiting plane.

Our bags did not make it.

Since travel's travel, how do you know when you're having the "trip of a lifetime"?  It seemed to be sometime later, when fellow travelers (also on their "trip of a lifetime") would ask, "So where have you been?"  We would answer in all travel-exhausted innocence:  "Well, we started in Venice where we stayed at the Hotel Cipriani (their eyes got big)...then we took the Orient Express to Paris (raised eyebrows), where we stayed at Le Meurice on the Rue di Rivioli across from the Tuillieries and Louvre Museum (big O mouths now)...and now we are getting on a ship to sail down the Seine River to Normandy."  Silence.  (They realize they shoulda got Tanja.)

Everyone compares notes; I just didn't expect our notes to be so impressive, even to seasoned travelers and the knowledgeable in the industry.

The Hotel Cipriani on the Isle of Giudecca is a paradise of history and intrigue among the Venetians.  It's the kind of place where you feel you could be anyone (movie maven, Mata Hari, Madonna, Mick Jagger) in any era.  A private water taxi whisks you to San Marco (St. Mark's Square.)

We were promised by our "handler" a "Very-ah Romantic-ah Evening-ah!"  My cynical hackles rose up, but she wasn't exaggerating, either. At dusk she dropped us at the famous Florian, that magical outdoor cafe with its own orchestra, for an aperitif, then off on a gondola ride down the Grand Canal, segueing off into the midnight, full moon maze where anything can happen! (And does!  And did!  But what happens in Venice stays in Venice!)   A late dinner at the exotic, Moorish-style Fortuny restaurant would have capped off the evening, except that we had to have nightcaps at Harry's Bar.  Was it dawn yet?  And that was just Day One of our "Trip of a Lifetime."  What is Italian for "Oh, dear!"?

Our final day in Venice, we water taxied to the train station to see the glamorous blue and gold Orient Express gleaming in the pink dawn fog.  

So many people to board?  No, no, they are just there to make snapshots of themselves with the train and the also gleaming blue and gold-uniformed staff.  Then the red velvet rope is removed for the passengers to be escorted to their historic carriages, each with a special name and history.  I am sure (just certain, so don't burst my balloon!) that Dame Agatha Christie wrote her famous Murder on the Orient Express  in our carriage.  After all, I believed the short, bald gentlemen with the handsome moustache must surely be famed detective Hercule Poirot!  What's it like aboard?  Elegance and hilarity: elegance for the decor, the black tie dinner, the music of yore in the bar car...hilarity for navigating the top bunk as we roller-coastered up the Alps...only to eventually double up in the lower bunk as we rock and rolled down the Alps and into Paris.  

Paris:  "A nice hotel," that's all I asked for, but genie Tanja booked us at the wild-historied Le Meurice. Why bother to go out and "see" the City of Lights at all when you can sit in the Dali Restaurant and marvel at the Philippe Stark redo of this palace?  Yes, that's Salvadore Dali, who once lived here.  (Now, others do, but it's all a chi-chi secret!  Though names do drop!)  The service? Dali once asked for 60 sheep to be brought to his room; they were...he pulled out a pistol and proceded to shoot them.  Oh, did I not drop zee names, as Poirot might say?  Elizabeth, queen; Elizabeth Taylor...oh, yes, and more royalty and rock and roll stars than you can shake a stick at.  And don't forget the Nazis.  And so:  on to our appointed rounds such as shopping at the Galleries Lafayette, eating Mont Chaud and eclairs at Angelinas, lunch at the Jules Verne restaurant on the 2nd level of the Tour Eiffel (including private elevator service!)  A night at the Moulin Rouge, where a reserved car dropped us out front with the masses of curious onlookers and those in line to buy or present their tickets.  "Are you the Longmeyers?" a voice behind the ubiquitous red rope asked.  "Oui!"  The rope is removed and we are escorted in first and to the best box.  It seems a "voucher" from Le Meurice is worth a thousand words (and probably Euros, but Tanja ain't telling and I ain't askin'!) I could tell you what we saw, but that would take all the fun out of your "Trip of a Lifetime."

 Up to our ears in croissant and chocolat, we eventually headed to the River Baronness, our waterbourne home for the coming week, as we sluiced down the Seine toward quaint and curious ports famed for fortresses, cathedrals, Knights Templar, and such.  But not before a night cruise beneath the full moon (What?  Do they paint it up there in the Paris sky?), the gold-glistening  Eiffel Tower, and all the bridges of Paris, awash in champagne, and what seems like a forty course dinner.  The next day, it's on to Monet's Giverney, the Palace of Versailles, and the beaches of Normandy, where Papa left two roses: one at the grave of a U.S. soldier whose name and hometown are noted on one in a sea of white cross tombstones, and another on the grave of a soldier known only to God.  He, too, had the "Trip of a Lifetime," though the trip was one no one wanted to take, and the lifetime was shorn way too short.  It was a sober evening.

I have only hit high spots, not the bleed of Euros at a usurious exchange rate...the scramble for the news of Hurricane Sandy "back home" (though a neighbor gets word our new house is only awash in sunshine.) There is the attempt to speak French, my most successful effort being non-verbal:  staring down a potential pickpocket (the same one more than once!)...and rolling eyes at the ceiling while standing my ground until I get the table I want (you know, the empty one, buddy!, not the one by the loo!)  Favorite moments?  Seeing Papa surprised at every turn, since he knew virtually nothing about this Tanja-planned trip!  (And I did an Oscar-worthy job of lamenting, "Oh, I guess we probably will have one of those cubicles belowdecks"...when we had a suite a stone's throw from the dancing, dinners, drinking, and such.)

But my favorite was seeing Papa adore the gondolas, something I thought he would find cliche, Disney World-ish, or worse, Las Vegas-ish.  He just found them darn fun, fascinating, and had we stayed longer, he might have just bought himself a striped shirt and straw hat and taken up the trade, singing off-key love songs in Iowan Italian, I imagine.  I would love to see that!

We saw late summer sunshine, near snow and frosted breath in Paris, and autumn leaves along the Seine as the orchestra sang (well what else?) "The autumn leaves...of red and gold" (in French of course, which sounds so much better) and ended with a blustery gray-liveried day that seemed to scream "Buy one last souvenir—a coat, and so we did, the gift to self that will keep on giving all winter long, reminding us of our "Trip of a Lifetime."

Travel is so weird.  You plan, you pay, you go.  Suddenly it's over and all you have to show for it are a Montmartre of bills, a kilo of calories to to burn off, an obscene slew of photos lost in digital lands across a computer, iPad, and two cell phones, and, oh, yes—memories to last a lifetime, including, I suppose, knowing how to say le bonbons ou la mort, "Trick or Treat!" in French.  

PS:  THANKS, TANJA!  Thanks to Michele, Michael, Paige, and all for holding down the Gallopade fort while we were gone; thanks for all the prayers for our health and safety (you done good!), for the Bon Voyage party, for the room at Chateau Yother, for the trip to the airport, Paige, and fetching our car back, for all who were Mimi and Papa in our stead on Halloween, and everything else.  I will bring my le bonbons bag to work with small trick or treat thank yous for you all! 

 

Lastly, thanks, Papa!  Papa?  Papa?  PAPA?

 

 

Wishing Everyone a Safe and Happy Halloween!

From the whole gang at Gallopade (costumed Mimi and Papa impersonators included!)

Slavery by Another Name...

Since sometimes, children read this blog, I will write gently on this subject.

However, write I must; some ladies in the office have been encouraging me to touch on this touchy subject since it has surfaced with vehemence in our general Atlanta area; however it is NOT limited to just Georgia, or only big cities.  Personally, I think it affects, or should affect, all of us.

The subject is not slavery in its traditional American history sense, but in just as valid a meaning:  the daily trafficking of girls, some as young as 13; you know what I mean.

 

The statistics are pitiful:  

Global trafficking...

 - Africa:  3.7 million

 - Latin America and the Caribbean:  1.8 million

 - In the US, European Union, and other developed countries:  1.5 million

 - Central, SE, East Europe and other non EU countries:  1.6 million

 - In the Middle East:  600,000

 

That's enough shame, anguish, and tragedy to around, hey?

I will not recount details here, but will say, it is more common than you think, so much closer to home than you might think.  President Obama, who has announced several national initiatives to help end trafficking of young girls and women, calls the situation "slavery," "barbaric," and "evil."  Schools and other groups are getting involved.  Even classroom lessons have been created to help make girls aware of how such situations can occur, so I do not feel like I am "talking out of school" here about so sensitive a subject, just trying to bring awareness and indignation to the forefront enough to incite action.

Without elaborating further, let me say that such things often happen in plain sight.  Lest I be misunderstood, yes, I mean on school and other presumably "child secure" premises, including in one instance highlighted in an article by Yamiche Alcindor for USA Today (Sept. 27, 2012), a girl "sold" during a sleepover at a friend's home...by the friend's father.

Yes, I'd much rather write about lovely children's books and lively literacy programs, but this is no fairytale, nor make-believe, only all too true and too tragic, and, too unnecessary.  Below I share sources for further information.  I can imagine (as these resources recount), the reasons behind how some of this gets underway...but I have no imagination big enough to encompass why I do not see the names of the people who perpetuate this "slavery" by utilizing these services...nor much about punishments for such crimes.

Once, I stopped on the side of a highway to use a pay phone to call a number that was suppose to help release some American women being held hostage in a foreign country.  But what do I, we, do to help girls in our own backyard, who are having their childhood, dignity, future—and so much more—spirited away in plain sight?  Let's all think of something.—

 

For more information:

• The USA Today article noted above

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

• The U.S. Attorney General's Office

• Fair Girls, a non-profit based out of Washington, DC, sponsor of a "Tell Your Friends" awareness curriculum

• There is HOPE for Me, a non-profit of Trinity International University

• The Polaris Project, which runs a hotline

...and your local law enforcement authorities

 

Thank you,

Carole 

 

New Book Covers!

Miscellaneous:

Expect to see a lot of these from me!

Kerfuffle:  Wow, how great to hear this word on the NBC Nightly News…what a great word!  Teach your kid a cool word today…kerfuffle will do just fine, ya’ll!

Calling Lunch, Brunch?:  Some school system is feeding its high school students at 8:30 and calling it brunch…because there’s no time to feed them at lunch time!  I would feed the kids in the hall, or at their desks, before I’d feed them that early and make them wait through the whole school day (including during afterschool activities)!  To add culinary insult to injury, they were feeding them (at 8:30) pizza and French fries…while at another school across the country, kids were boycotting healthy lunches at noon!  Is school now nuts, or what, speaking of which…

This is not an editorial comment, per the recent Chicago teacher strike. It never occurred to me, but the biggest day care in the nation is…SCHOOL.  Yes, I know; I used it that way, too, as a young, divorced mom.  But would the women’s economic rise ever have happened…if their kids hadn’t been in school a few hours a day?  I ask, because, again, per the Chicago teacher strike, is school on the way out?  And, if so, what will moms do?

We’ll discuss more of these issues…after lunch:  at, uh, 8:45 a.m.

 

 

PS:  I love doctors who have names like:

Dr. Bones…he’s a real orthopedic doctor!

And Dr. Diaper…yes, I promise he’s a pediatrician!

 

Elegance

 

AND I REMEMBERED!

 

If you saw my previous blog, you'll know that I could not remember a word that I like to think refers to my writing goals.  [Someone asked, "What do you try to bring to the table when you write for children?"]

Exuberance was my first word, and came easily to me.  It just sounds more, uh, exuberant than plain old enthusiasm.

The second word is elegance.  Elegance.  It has such an elegant sound, but I don't mean it in the traditional sense of something of great style and beauty.  I really mean the physics meaning of the word...elegance.  Math has a kind of elegance.  Atomic elements have such a kind of elegance that one nanoparticle is even called "charm."  Steve Jobs strove for "elegance," he said, in his designs for Apple products, down even to the degree of beveled edge around the computer monitor.

I like to think the elegance I try to bring to kids' books is a kind of charm, TLC, touch, feel, sound, and look, when we can get enough budget for creativity.

I feel elegant when I am writing and staring, not out into space as it must surely appear, but into the eyes of a child.  In my mind, children are watching and looking at and listening to my every word, every subtle nuance.  As long as they look highly interested, intrigued, impressed, entertained, surprised...I feel I am on track.  If they deign to give me a wry smile, or nod, or a wide-eyed look of wonder when the light bulb goes off over their head, then I am most satisfied.  

Elegance is a subtle thing.  It may be the right word in the right place...a neat turn of phrase...an apt metaphor...a pun...a touch of humor...a teasing piece of art or illustration.  My intention when writing is to be exuberant, and to achieve a kind of elegance.  Kids deserve both.  Young readers probably can't define either word, but they know and feel both when they see and read the things that charm them.

Maybe that's why I would never have called the new way of teaching "Common Core."  I would have called it Uncommon Core and tried mightily to make it exuberant and elegant.  I may get that chance.  I plan to try.  Can't always say adults appreciate the subtleties, but kids always do.  Always.

Asked…and Answered

Usually I get my most enlightening and entertaining questions from four- year-olds or fourth-graders.  But new moves, new places, new questions?

Someone (an adult), learning that I was a writer, asked, “So what do you try to bring to your writing?”  It was a good question, one I had not been asked before, not that precisely anyway…it was either an innocent question, or a challenge?

As usual (and as you learn from being on tv and such), I only took a single deep breath and plunged right in:

 

Exuberance!:  I try not to hold back.  As folks who know me know, my interests range from alligators to zombies and everything in between, above, below, and beyond.  When it interests me, I adopt that subject and become both archaeologist, digging for data, and astronaut, searching beyond what is known or has been said.  I cram it all in then spit it all out, usually in a sort of wild delight of sharing (surely everyone is interested?) in my ubiquitous sort of rambling style; to wit, reread this sentence!

 

As I had the audacity (or foolishness) to share with the state school superintendent of Georgia the other day: “ I just grab that kid by the throat and look them in the eyes and tell them all I know and never let em loose until I see the light bulb over their head come on”.  (He looked startled, I confess.)  Milquetoast me?—not.  I let it all hang out, even at risk of making a fool of myself.  Everything is fascinating and there is so much to learn, and it’s always changing.  I just invite kids on the train!

 

E____________________________________________(see below.)

 

By now enamored with e-words, I instantly thought:  Enthusiasm!  Empathy!  Enlightenment!  Elucidation!...and more, but I could see my questioner, I confess, looked startled.  I shrugged and smiled, never once allowing the possibility of making a fool of myself prevent me from my usual written—or verbal—exuberance and ___________________________________*.

 

*Honestly, I was so excited by exuberance that I forgot the second word.  I guess it don’t matter?

Odds & Ends

Now that my new Careers Curriculum’s first six books are finished,* I have more time to consider other things…like football.

When I was a teenager I went to my first high school football game; I had no idea what was going on on the field.  Our civics teacher started our freshman year by teaching us about football.  At the time I thought that was odd, but, really, it was a service.  Later, I went to my first Georgia Tech homecoming game and learned what football was really all about—cute guys and gorgeous gals.  I was still a young teen; I was so envious. 

Today, I don’t understand football at all.  Here are just a few things I don’t understand:

• They call it Monday Night Football…so why is it on also on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?  Indeed, it is on all the time.

• Are there really different players on different teams?  I mean how many players can be named Manning?  And, why, no matter what game I’m watching, do they seem to talk about Roethlisberger? And does that guy with the long dreadlocks coming out of his helmet play for every team?  I mean I see him in every game.

• Don’t football players care how big their butts look?  If so, why do they wear those new sunny-side-up yellow pants?  Tight ends, indeed. 

• How did football get so powerful that it can change something near and dear to my heart—grammar.  I mean is Tebow a guy, a noun, or a verb?  Even little kids know how to Tebow, or seem to be Tebowing.  I saw a little boy come out of a restroom.  He looked at me and said proudly, “I Tebowed!”

 • Lastly, do they think we are idiots?  Those so-called “punishments” for heavy duty infractions seem to be here today, gone…in time for the big game tomorrow.  What kind of example is that for Tebowing kids? 

Speaking of kids, I’m with my grandson, Evan, who says that he can’t play football.  “Why not?” I ask.  “It's too rough!” he insists.  Evan is four; he is very smart for his age.  Besides, in T-ball (which he can play), you don’t have to wear ugly banana yellow pants.  But I do wonder if that  “T” stands for…oh, surely not? 

Gotta go:  Papa says the Big Game is coming on.  Which one?  I have no idea.  After all, if it’s Monday, it must be football.  (Same if Tuesday, Wednesday….)

(Oh, yeah, and how can someone who makes millions of dollars a year fumble a simple girly-soft hike of the ball to him to kick for a field goal?  Did you see that?!!!!  Honestly, I think his yellow pants were too tight.  I don’t remember his name, but I’ll bet it was ________________________________________!)

Really gotta go:  Papa has ordered “a hot dog and a cold one.”  I know my position on this home team!  

*Speaking of which, a special TEBOW thank you to my great Careers Curriculum Team!  I owe each of you a hot dog and a cold one!  We did it—and no tight yellow pants were harmed in the process!