Tracy Seeley visit

Tracy Seeley reads from her memoir My Ruby Slippers.

Local author and poet Ted Kooser receives an autograph from Tracy Seeley at Chapters.

Thanks to everyone who attended our "Hour with Tracy Seeley" at Chapters last night.  We had a great crowd, the largest she's had so far on her summer tour.  Cara Pesek, publicist for Tracy's publisher, the University of Nebraska Press, says Tracy's book is one of her favorites from this year's new books.  The passage Tracy read describing the Kansas prairie where she grew up made me think she was describing my own little slice of the prairie!  It was a pleasure to meet her, and I hope you all enjoyed her as much as I did.  We do still have one autographed copy of her memoir, My Ruby Slippers.  First one to ask gets it!  Here are a couple of photos from the evening.

On another note, right now I'm listening to the last recorded "Poetry of the Plains" segment on NPR with the late William Kloefkorn, who passed away a few weeks ago.  He's reading poems from his recent book, Swallowing the Soap.  The one he just read made me laugh out loud, alone in the store.  It was something about listening to your grandmother's advice, though I missed the title.

Photos from Camp

Christina Diaz Gonzalez visited via Skype.  She inspired a group of middle and high school students to keep reading and writing while talking about her book, The Red Umbrella.

Our first-ever toddler storytime was a lot of fun, for us and for the kids and their families.  We read stories about a tickle monster one day and stories that encouraged everyone to be noisy the next day.

Nathan enjoyed a little time with his grandma after storytime.  We love to see kids enjoying books!

Our campers love craft time. . .

Almost as much as snack time!

Storytime is fun too!

Aaron made a perfect penguin.

Our 7-10 year old campers performed a dramatic reading of Tacky the Penguin for parents and friends at the Civic Center.  The younger campers performed their version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar with puppets.

The String Beans had people of all ages dancing in the aisles on July 1.  What a great finale to our week!

Get Caught Reading Photo Contest

Our first facebook contest is now open for entries!  Post photos of you or people you know reading in unique or interesting places.  I can't win, of course, but to get us started I posted a photo of JB reading a New York City guidebook on the Staten Island Ferry.  Here's the link to our contest.  I'm looking forward to seeing what creative ideas you come up with.  My nephew John Ryan has been thinking about this for weeks.  He's the kid who made a duct tape slip n slide last week, so I'm sure he'll come up with something good!

Welcome!

Thanks to Megan Boggs for the update to our website, which should be more streamlined and user-friendly than our previous site.  Check out the calendar and online store and other features!

My Nathan was clicking through the online store as we were updating the site, and he kept saying, "You have . . . ." and marveling that he could find any CD or DVD that he could think to search for.  Yes, you can order just about any book, CD, or DVD that you could get from one of those "big box" retailers from Chapters now, and have it delivered right to you or to anyone else you choose.

We're also excited that within a few days, e-books will be available through our website.  You'll be able to download e-books and read them on any windows-based device, as long as you have the blio app installed.  Before long you'll be able to read them on iphone, ipod, ipad, and other Mac products, too.

Watch this blog for photos from our events and other items of interest.  I'll get some photos from camp posted when I have more time.  Meanwhile, you can find them on our facebook page at www.facebookcom/ChaptersBooksandGifts.

Have a great weekend!