Back Again - Home Again

Well, I thought I'd blog twice a week and I did that for awhile and then, like all of you, I got busy. A whole month's worth of busy. My excuse? I was working on a new manuscript and we hosted the Nevada SCBWI Novel Immersion Retreat at Lake Tahoe. And I need to mow the lawn in the summer. And we updated my website. Check it out at www.suzannemorganwilliams.com It has a new look and some cool photos. But here's what's on my mind:

I picked up a book at the SCBWI Conference in LA in August that I really liked. It was this year's Golden Kite Winning novel, but honestly, it was the topic that intrigued me - an African refugee boy who resettled in Minnesota. Having hosted a Bolivian exchange student for a year, I do know what kind of cold that character would have experienced. I wanted to read the book - Home of the Brave, by Katherine Applegate - and I loved it. It is a gentle story, told in verse, that moves along carrying the reader with Kek as he discovers snow, takes comfort from a cow, must adjust to a foreign culture, and hopes to reconnect with his lost mother. If you've ever worked with foreign students or immigrant children, ever known a kid who was sunny dispite the most difficult circumstances, if you just want a good, hopeful book, I'd read this one.

Information:There were more than 2,000 Sudanese refugees in Maine in 2006. San Diego claims 3,500. Omaha Nebraska has 9,000 Sudanese refugees. Check out this link
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-berkshire-pg,0,6666314.photogallery?index=9