A look back east

I really wanted to do a nice rundown of my two weeks touring in the midwest, but clearly I'm not finding the time, so let me do some highlights:

• Meeting the fine staff of Pooh's Corner in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a darling children's book store. A wonderful literacy specialist brought in several students to chat with me, and one darling fan gave me a bracelet she'd made.
• Treehouse Books in Holland, Michigan is yet another store to drool over. I'm pretty sure I spent more on books in every store I visited than I could've made from books I signed. Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis lived up to its phenomenal reputation. We had a great event there with all the wild animals that roam the store, Elvis the Chicken being my personal favorite. Halfway Down the Stairs was so great. I spent a fortune there, I think. So was Book Beat. And Valley Bookseller. And Red Balloon. So many amazing bookstores! It's very encouraging.
• On tour, besides doing stock signings or public signings in book stores, I do school visits. This is a real highlight for me. I visited several schools, but the one that sticks out the most was the last one, Carondelet Catholic School. Let me try to describe how cool they were--after I presented to the fifth grade, about ten students read to me selections from a writer's diary they'd been keeping. Then we played Jeopardy--me against two other students. Some of the categories were "Famous Minnesotans" and "Hale Tale." It was hysterical. They whooped me. Then we had cider and apple bread. It was a regular party. The kids were fantastic, and I couldn't believe how wonderful the teachers were to put it together.
• At several events or stock signings, some of you came out to say hi, which is always very cool. Something I’ve thought all along but has been confirmed—I have very smart, sassy fans. It makes me so proud to meet the people who come to my signings and discover that they’re bright and happy and original. What a huge compliment.
• Having dinner with Kelly Link (author of the fabulous Magic for Beginners) and Gavin Grant at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Book people tend to be so cool.

Just in case you might think book touring is all glamour, let me share with you a few moments:

• Presenting to about 100 8th graders, telling them things I think are funny and being greeted in return by silence and the muffled whispers of friends whispering to each other
• Sitting near the back of a plane in a middle seat, and being so pregnant that I can’t bend over and reach my laptop under the seat in front of me
• Sitting alone in my hotel room and flipping channels for over an hour—7 minutes of a Friends episode (a show I never watched so I had no idea what’s going on), 3 minutes of a History channel show about merchant ships, 10 minutes of the end of Father of the Bride 2, a few commercials, some CNN, some more History channel, a little bit of Legally Blonde, more commercials, and then a bit of a cooking show.
• As wonderful as school visits are, they're also incredibly exhausting. I don't know what it is about doing a 45 minute assembly that makes me want to curl up and sleep afterward. And being pregnant, this was especially a challenge. One day, we had to drive from one city to the next after a book signing in the evening, so I didn't get to bed until 1 am, and then the next morning we were up early to visit the fabulous Kingwood/Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It's an all girls middle school and the girls were fantastic. Afterward I signed a number of books, and by the end of it, I was literally shutting down. I couldn't see very well, I was misspelling words, my head seemed to be in a bubble and floating away, I could barely stand up. I've never felt exhaustion like I do when pregnant. It's like I have a limited amount of energy, and once it's spent, there's nothing left, no second wind. My body seems to shut down all secondary functions (like rational thought, sight, and limb movement) in order to keep pumping life support to the fetus. Weird.

And I'm home. Max had a hard time, especially during my second tour in Minneapolis. I won't be touring again without kids for some years to come, I think, so that means I won't be touring much at all. It's just too hard on the family. Michigan and Minnesota were so great! All my love to the warm folk I met out there.