FOCAL event

Last Sunday, I had the wonderful opportunity to be a guest of FOCAL, (friends of children and literature) at the Central Los Angeles library branch, which is right downtown in the middle of all the big buildings. Librarians Madeline Bryant and Mara Alpert were my hostesses, as well as Caroline Gill, who is the president of FOCAL. She's also the librarian of a large middle school. I was honored to have been asked to come and present the reader's theater from my middle grade novel, The Year the Swallows Came Early. We had a lot of kids who wanted to read a part, but the best thing was that a third grade boy named Francisco read the part of Frankie, who is one of the characters in my book and whose real name is Francisco. He did a perfect job, having the most lines to read, since that particular chapter is more about him than my main character. When I signed a copy of my book for him, I wrote that we couldn't have found a better person to read the part, and, of course, he agreed.