Here it is Tuesday already. Yesterday was Steve's birthday so he had the day off. Today is my normal day to be at Montessori, but it is their Spring Break. Next week is actually my Spring Break at ECU so we are going to fly on Liat airlines over to St. Marteen for a few days. That is if the pilots don't go on a "sick out" again like last week. Steve found a small 8 room Inn that we are staying at - quiet and quaint. Just what we both need right now.

Have been going through my books to decide what I want to keep down here and what I want to send up to Greenville and came across a copy of Where We Are What We See: Poems, Stories, Essays, and Art from the Best Young Writers and Artists of America. This paperback Push Anthology is a selection of the entries in the 2002, 2003, and 2004 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. The talent of these Middle through High School age teens is amazing. These are not pretty little stories and poems. Some are so raw your eyes hurt and some are just down right brilliant in their genre. The language is theirs and the pain is theirs - all right there on the page in black and white, sometimes so deftly done with a few words you forget these are teens. But then again, perhaps we should forget they are teens, and acknowledge them for what they are - talented writers and artists. A superb addition to upper level YA collections.

Sandra and Miles Pinkney have put together a visual treat to encourage reading - Read and Rise, that begins with a poem by Maja Angelou. I love the line:
"Reading is the river
To your liberty
For all your life to come"
This book is part of a campaign to encourage reading in our urban areas, by the National Urban League and Scholastic.

All for now.