mary e. pearson

Lots of catch up today.

First and most important,  I want to bring to your attention that author and editor Deborah Halverson, is walking in the Susan G. Komen  Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk for the cure.  I've talked before about what a difference cancer research makes.  It will save the life of someone you love.  Please hop over to her site and support her.  Every little bit helps. 

And my gosh, you gotta love the name of her team, The More the Merrier Walkers for Knockers.

more news . . .

The Mission Viejo Reader Festival this past weekend was so much fun.  Alyson Noel has a picture on her blog and talks about how great the librarian, staff, and volunteers were.  I have to say, DITTO.  You would have thought they had done this a hundred times instead of it being their first festival ever.  Kudos to them all. One funny thing, knowing that Henry Winkler would be there, I took a copy of the picture of the Bronze Fonz that lisaalbert took for The Miles Between tour, thinking I might show it to him.  Because of my panel time, I didn't get the chance, but one of the awesome volunteers showed up and brought it back to me signed!  So funny.  Love it!




Film update for The Adoration of Jenna Fox:  I heard from my agent and they expect the screenplay to be finished by the end of the month.  Hooray!

I've been amazed at the response to my post What YA Lit is and isn't.  I guess a lot of us have run into these misconceptions.

For my cat loving friends, a pretty funny video.  Who says cats don't like water?  Thanks to my sis for this video.

Remember, Walkers for Knockers.  Every.  Little.  Bit.  Helps. 

I know I have yet to post my BEA pics and report, but I just got back from an awesome school visit, sooo . . .

Why was this visit awesome?

Pajama Day!


Yep. There I am in the library and the students begin arriving in their PJ's. Darn, I wish I would have known. Rolling straight out of bed and into my car works any day for me. But there are lots of other reasons why the visit was awesome too:

1. The students had already read my book and were eager to talk books and ask questions. And they asked some terrific ones. You can always tell when students are prepared for a visit. We all get more out of it. (And hey they had some great slippers too. I think we all need to have a pajama day once a month, don't you think?)

2. San Pasqual school is so unique. I visited there a few years ago (and blogged about it) and was blown away by the beauty, the architecture, the staff, and the students.

3. Librarian Goddess, Teri MacDonald, who was responsible for all the above mentioned preparation.

4. And not only that, I had another Librarian Goddess, Vicki Reed, from the SDCOE who arranged the whole visit, and accompanied me.

L to R, Vicki, moi, and Teri, in front of the spectacular library "barn" with reading silo.


What a difference both of these librarians make, to make sure that no child is left behind in the truest sense. Not to get all sappy, but reading is where it's at. Period. Empower kids with the right book for them and you open their worlds. I've seen it happen over and over again. And that's what these ladies do. Okay, I got sappy. Sorry. But it's true.

Tomorrow, BEA!

I forgot to take my camera to ALA in Seattle so I had to use my cell phone camera and I finally got the pics off my cell phone and onto my computer. A little late but I thought I’d post a few.

Seattle is a wonderful town. I had a view of the Space Needle from my room. I ate lunch there once years ago, and the whole thing revolves at the top, so by the time you’ve finished your meal you’ve had a 360 degree view of the city. How cool is that?




My first night in Seattle I had dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant, Tulio Ristorante, with my agent and several of her clients. I did not take this picture (which is obvious by the quality of it) Not a blink in the crowd. From left to right, standing, are authors, Amber Kizer, Lawrence Mckay, Jr., Marcia Vaughn, and Kent Mochizuki. Seated are Trudi Strain Trueit (her husband is the fabulous photographer), Moi, our fun and wonderful agent, Rosemary Stimola, and the amazing Liz Gallagher, aka lizgallagher who rode her motorcycle there–wearing high heels! I kid you not.




Okay, this may seem like a weird shot, but did you know that Seattle is home to the original Nordstrom? It is a whopper–FIVE stories tall. I did pop in and buy a box of four truffles when I was having a major chocolate attack. Their double chocolate truffles are the best.




And of course at the Convention Center Exhibit Hall, I happened to run into Good Dog Carl. His human, Alexandra Day, asked him to pose for me against a white table. And when she asked him to smile, he happily obliged. What a sport.




The conference was fun. I had time to catch up with friends and meet new ones. One night I had dinner with fellow authors, Nancy Werlin, Jane Kurtz, Linda Johns (who is also the YA librarian at Seattle Public Library), Heather Vogel Frederick, Sara Ryan, Andrea Beaty, and LJ’s bgliterary. We ate at Wild Ginger and the food was fabulous (thanks to Barry and Sara's great choices.)

The nice thing about ALA midwinter is that it is smaller so you have the opportunity to meet and chat with more people. I had the pleasure of finally meeting Liz Burns and breaking bread with her (well, pizza out of our laps) and we strolled the exhibits for a while getting a few arcs. She is as lovely in person as she seems on her blog. Oh! And I strolled for a bit with librarians Melissa and cedarlibrarian Watch out with those two! They have eagle eyes when it comes to arcs (I bet they are wicked good shoppers, too) and in two minutes with them I had more arcs than I could carry and had to run to Fed Ex to mail them home.

There are lots of lines at any conference and this one was no exception, but one thing I have learned is that you can meet interesting people waiting in lines. Waiting to mail ARCS at Fed Ex, I met Diana Tixler Herald; waiting in line at Starbucks I met librarian, Ashley Flagherty; and waiting in line to go to the awards ceremony, I met librarian Rollie Welch, and he shared some interesting things about A Room on Lorelei Street with me. There were sightings and near misses, but I never did run into professornana Darn. I guess we didn’t frequent the same long lines.

And of course, strolling through the exhibits, I ran into too many people to mention them all, but I met a zillion. Some were folks who I had “met” online but never in person, so it was like meeting old friends. It took us forever to walk down just one aisle because of all the stopping and yakking. Boy, you let authors out of their caves and that is all they want to do.

One of the very best things to do at midwinter is to go to the BBYA talks where real bonafide teens get the opportunity to talk about the books they love (and sometimes hate.) I love listening to their comments. It is amazing how insightful, articulate, and passionate they are about the books they read. If you could go and do nothing else but listen to these teens, it would be well worth it. Makes you want to get right back to your keyboard and write (which I did.)

And last but not least, I want to say that the conference ended for me on a exquisite note. When I saw that our own cynthialord won the Schneider Award and then a Newbery Honor I could hardly contain myself. I loved RULES and I was so thrilled to see it get the recognition it deserved. I’ve already sent Cindy private congrats, but I will wave and holler here for her one more time because she more than deserves it.

YAHOO, Cyn!!

I had the BEST time at San Pasqual Union School yesterday. THIS is their library!!! The whole school is done in a rural motif. That silo is the "reading silo" filled with bean bags for students to hang around and read in. My visit was every author's dream: I met in the library with a small group of 40 students, and Super Librarian, Teri McDonald had them so well prepared--every one of them had read my book! Wow, what intelligent, thoughtful questions they asked. I was completely blown away. They even shared their food with me. A very generous group.

And the school itself is just incredible. It is the only school in the district, K-8 (I met with 7th and 8th grades) and it is in a rural area of Escondido. When they built a new school four years ago, they wanted it to reflect the rural heritage of the school and area--and does it ever. The gym/amphitheater looks like a barn, there is white split rail fencing around garden areas, and old antique tractors and bleached cow bones are landscape details. But the school is modern in every sense. It's absolutely refreshing to see some creativity in school architecture. It doesn't look anything like MY middle school.

Anyway, huge thanks to Helen Foster James for arranging this visit.

Valley Middle School in Carlsbad voted today for their choice for the CYRM. Library goddess, Peggy Hodge, made it an event, with food, prizes, and inviting two authors two chat with students. Peggy is amazing and her library is incredible. And then there are the students! They love to read!

I'm in this picture somewhere!


At lunch I sat at a table with students Cole, Michelle, Alex, Crystal, and Zandy, who read ALL the books up for an award–YA, Junior, and Intermediate.

The YA books up for the CYRM are Of Sound Mind by Jean Ferris, Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz, and Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes.

I also got to chat and present with Jodie Schull, whose book, Georgia O’Keeffe Legendary American Painter, is fascinating. Did you know that Georgia didn’t learn how to drive until she was 43? Neither did I! She traveled to Europe for the first time at age 65, and took a 185 mile river rafting trip at age 73! Lots of interesting personal details about this legendary artist.

Oh, and did I mention the food?



Peggy always makes sure these students are well rewarded for their reading efforts. Lucky me–that means I get food too! Pizza! Carrots! Cookies! She even had those yummy apple/caramel suckers that pull out fillings. I love those.




Peggy and Jodie--minus their caramel/apple suckers : )

Good luck to all the CYRM nominees!