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The very first time I visited McCormick Place, it was the original McCormick Place's grand opening and I was in the fourth grade. My class had studied Chicago history and the book had a drawing of the new convention center. I just had to go. I don't know how I got my dad to take the family but we all went. And who did we run into? Well, Mrs. Bacon, my fourth grade teacher! Talk about getting brownie points!

McCormick Place and I have had our ups and downs through the years (the original building was devoured in a fire and sat in ruins for years before being rebuilt and expanded). But yesterday we were both having a grand time. The site of the old center, now dubbed McCormick Lakeside or East, is hosting the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children. I was there to sign books in the Albert Whitman booth.

It was fun to meet the editors, marketing people, and even the president with whom I had only emailed and spoken with on the phone. Here I am in my New Year's best with my editor Wendy McClure.

This is the last Florida post. I promise...

(l to r) Harlem, Bird and Miss Delphine

Me!

Kids presenting me with a terrific book of drawings.


Me (left) and librarian Starr Anderson, who makes the world's best Spanish bean soup.

At the FAME conference in Orlando, I got Jane O'Connor's (Fancy Nancy) gift basket and she got mine. So I got a cool wand that made magical noises when you waved it - and a feather fan. There's also a chocolate alligator there.

This was the coolest thing ever ! At this school, they are creating a Reading Garden: a garden with plants and trees and benches where the children can go to read.

Each author who visits the school gets something planted in their honor.

This is me with the most amazing librarian on the planet, Dee Dee Schatzberg, planting the three bushes that are MY bushes in their garden. (A Barbara Bush?)

Other authors represented in the garden include Jim Aylsworth, Tom Birdseye, Herb Packer, and Laurie Byars.





Me with a banner made by students.











Me (left) and teacher, Ms. Torres (right). All the kids think she looks just like Miss Delphine in Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia - and she does!! Exactly!

She has great red hair and dangley earrings and even sparkly high-heeled shoes that go clickity clack.

And she is uber nice, like Miss Delphine.

The kids adore her.







The amazing Dee Dee getting roses for her birthday. Everybody in the entire city of Tampa adores Dee Dee.

(Thank you, Dee Dee, for being my chauffeur and BFF.)










Kids showing me their spelling bee!

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Comfort Inn in Tampa, Florida, getting ready to begin my last day of school presentations. Wow - these Florida folks know how to do it right!

I have a zillion pics but not time to post them yet.

Have to give a major shout-out to Librarian Extraordinnaire Dee Dee Schatzberg, who chauffeured me around endlessly and presented me with the most excited kids on the face of the planet. AND - she planned a lovely ceremony at her school's "Reading Garden", when they planted three bushes in my honor! How cool is that?

Hey - they can be Barbara Bush!

Off to FAME conference this evening (Florida Association for Media in Education.)

Greetings from Florida. My first day of school visits started at the most beautiful elementary school ever. It was 80 years old and had so much character. Check out the tiles on these stairs, made by children (the tiles, that is...not the stairs.)