Hello all!
Just got back from an outing to our very lame local mall (featured on deadmalls.com) with Lil Dude this rainy afternoon. He's fascinated by mannequins, and was on a mission to look under each one's shirt to confirm that they each had a belly button. (All of them did, although many were headless.) He's into belly buttons. The other day, out of the blue, he said in a very serious voice, "Mommy, all mammals have belly buttons. If it has a belly button, it's a mammal."
So, other fun stuff... I had a gathering at my house a few days ago in honor of Maria Virginia Farinango, my co-author for The Queen of Water (March 2011). She's in town now, but will return to Ecuador soon... we wanted to have a little shin dig to show off the gorgeous review copy of Queen and thank everyone who gave us revision help or general moral support!
Here's Maria V with Maria Luisa (Swiss woman who plays Andean music!) and Julie (writer, bilingual educator, and good friend). Maria is posed with dirty dishes... it's kind of a running joke that she's not allowed to do any cleaning up at my house, but then she always sneaks in the kitchen and does it while I'm blabbing away and drinking wine... (I always wait till the next day (or day after that or after that) to do dishes.)
Sarah, from my writing group, with new baby and cute new haircut! She helped with Queen revisions over the past five or so years!
To the left of Sarah is Michelle-- a fourth grade teacher at bilingual school in our neighborhood-- she helped with Queen revisions during our Spanish-speaking focus group.
To the left of Michelle is Margaret-- a friend of Maria's who does amazing international community development volunteer work (with Afghan women and rug-making)
And here's his mom, Carrie, who is in my writing group, and like Sarah, has seen many drafts of The Queen of Water. (I think she's the one, who at one point during the process of choosing a title for this book, suggested "Maria and the Potatoes", since Maria talked a lot about potatoes in one draft of the book. Hehehe...) To the right of Carrie is Holly, holding Sarah's baby (I know, babies galore!) Holly is an educator, fluent in Spanish, and was part of our Spanish focus group.
There's MaryLou in the middle... another amazing woman who does lots of international volunteer work. She's involved with the Xucaneb Fund to enable secondary education in a Guatemalan village, a non-profit where I donated 5% of my royalties last year.
Ian (hubbie, with new haircut) and Paul, another bilingual educator who helped us in the Spanish focus group for Queen. Great guy!
As usual, I'll refrain from posting a pic of Lil Dude, but trust me, with every passing day, his curly hair grows wilder and he grows cuter!
On a different note, here's a little blurb from School Library Journal's nice review of The Ruby Notebook (in their October issue):
"With a hint of mystery, a bit of romance, a touch of travel, and some coming-of-age, this book covers a lot of ground without ever feeling scattered or haphazard. Resau’s robust descriptions give readers a good picture of France and its people... Anyone who enjoys detailed settings and thoughtful narratives will be rewarded with this story." -- SLJ
The Fort Collins Coloradoan also had a lovely review of Ruby today:
"Curl up with this and you'll be sorry when it ends. Resau's easy, heartwarming literary style inserts the reader into the focal setting of the village plaza, making the characters Zeeta hangs out with such as the pigeon man and the elderly binocular lady genuine parts of the scene. Zeeta juggles a mysterious admirer with her boyfriend and becomes involved in a search for legendary spring waters that offer a coming of age and give Zeeta life lessons on love in all its forms. Highly recommended." – Nancy Hansford
Thanks for reading!
xo
Laura