Quick update on the months of August, September
and October:
August never
happened. I don’t remember August at
all, so…it just didn’t exist this year.
June, July, September, October.
Yep. That was how my calendar
looked.
Mid-September was our
annual family trip to Ft. Walton Beach Florida where we rested up in the calm
that is before the inevitable storm of fall programming (for me) and football
season photo assignments (for Eric). No
obligations to anything except eating, swimming, and hanging with family.
Late September was spent
with the entertaining and controversial YA author Chris Crutcher, who was in
town for our Gadsden Reads Banned Books Week.
Several public speaking engagements, a visit to the Etowah County
Detention Center to speak with our female Substance Abuse Program inmates and
two school visits (Gadsden City High and my alma mater, Southside High…Go
Panthers!) then Chris was back on a plane to Washington State. An incredible writer and a wonderful person
with which to converse. He GETS people. He GETS behavior. He GETS teenagers. And the students love him. They flock to him to ask him questions, or to
tell him how his stories aren’t just stories, he's writing about their lives. It is pretty powerful to be in a room where
Chris Crutcher is talking to a hundred-plus students, students who keep asking
him great question after great question, students who stay after his talk to
ask him more personal questions before wandering away to their next class. We want to bring him back. We have to bring him back.
Tex was in attendance of
Chris’ library talk. He came into my
office a couple of hours before the event and wanted to know who Chris was,
what kind of books did he write, where was he from, and was there going to be free
food. When I mentioned that Chris wrote
young adult books about being a teenager and other stuff, Tex just
sort of nodded without too much interest.
Me: “He sometimes uses curse words and writes about
sports and about teens who get in trouble.
Nothing that you’d be interested in.”
Tex (interest suddenly
piqued): “Really? He writes cuss words in his books?”
Me: “Yup. Not all of them, but some of them. Says that he sometimes finds out the most
popular profanity at events just like the one we’re having tonight. So, maybe you shouldn’t come…
Tex: “Oh, I’m coming alright. Is he selling books?”
Me: “The library is. We have The Sledding Hill for $10.”
Tex: “I sure wish I had $10 to buy that book with.”
Me: “Well, I’ll buy you a copy and you can have
him sign it, if you even come tonight.
But I’m still not sure you should…
And so that is how I not
only got a thirteen-year-old boy to come to an author reading at the GPL, but I
also got a copy of The Sledding Hill into his hands. Now, I don’t know if Tex will ever notice
that there is no profanity in that book, but I do hope he notices characters in
the story who share some similar hardships as those he faces. They may be subtle similarities, but they are
similarities nonetheless. And I hope that
he one day understands that there are other folks who have walked the same path
that he walks, and that he’s not alone. And
all it took was the promise of a free book, free food and maybe some new
profanity.
