ramblings from an arkansas farm girl
Silly Putty gave Gracie Lee something to do while she ate breakfast or waited for the school bus on a cold winter morning. Plus, there was magic in that small wad of snappy plastic. When she pressed it flat against Snoopy, his picture appeared on the putty. That was neat. But the best part?Continue Reading
I appreciate all the recent questions I’ve received from readers about my book. Today I thought I’d share a book update. Hallelujah, I finished another (the last?) round of edits and sent the manuscript back to my publisher. Of course, I immediately found a few more things to change. This same thing always happens to me the moment I click the “publish” button for a blog post—glaring mistakes vault off the page. Honestly, I think at some point a writer must call it finished and stop editing.
Probably the most exciting news I have to report is…Continue Reading
Public Domain, Library of Congress
Game booths lined the walls of the school auditorium, one booth per class, not real games like at the Mid-South Fair, but simple ones like the duck game or fishing. All the games were kind of lame yet cool at the same time, because no matter how badly Gracie Lee and her friends played, the PTA mothers in charge gave out candy and prizes. Right off, Gracie and her best friend, Janice, played a tic-tac-toe game with beanbags. Janice won a candy necklace, and Gracie won a Chinese finger trap.
Over in the far corner of the auditorium, in the area that had been the girls’ locker room before Coach Greene’s new gym was built, the spook house scared anyone brave enough to pass through its doorway. The ninth graders were in charge of it, and Gracie Lee knew by all the screaming that it was real. She never went in or dared walk near the doorway because sometimes monsters dragged kids inside. That’s what had happened last year to one of her classmates, and he’d not been the same since.Continue Reading
