Last week I spent some time at the American Library Association Convention in Anaheim, which was a wonderful celebration of books and reading. Librarians are wildly enthusiastic about books and authors --- and they ask smart questions and provoke thoughtful replies when they are at panels and speeches.

Hello from sunny California! I am at the American Library Association's Annual Conference this week, getting the scoop about great books that will appear on the shelves in the months to come. This morning I had the opportunity to hear Suzanne Collins, author of THE HUNGER GAMES, read from her book. I think I may have told you how fabulous this book is, but hearing Suzanne read it made it an even more amazing experience for me. I know that whenever I read pages from it in the future, I will hear her voice. See details below on how to become an early reader/reviewer of this book, which comes out in October. 

My son graduated from high school! It was a wonderfully crazy 48 hours of celebrating with lots of jokes and surprisingly no tears from sentimental me. Perhaps that came from the joyous concept that there will be no alarms, homework or endless rushing around in the AM for a blessed 2 1/2 months. I woke Greg up on the last day of graduation practice (there were three days of this) and confess I did get a bit misty-eyed realizing this is the last time I would be doing reveille for him. May he please have a college schedule with late classes or may he have roommates who make lots and lots of noise. He already has demonstrated that he can sleep through the alarm.

After a cool spring, summer in the Northeast began ahead of schedule earlier this month with a heat wave. With high humidity and near-100 degree temperatures, we jump started summer. Now that temps have returned to a more seasonal 80 degree range (I say this is California weather), I am enjoying spending time reading outside, which is one of the reasons I love this time of year.