During the last class of the semester, I did a show-and-tell re the publication process for my students in my Issues in Children’s Literature class at Queens College. How? I showed them the page proof of Thanksgiving: The True Story that had just arrived. The page proof being my manuscript now typeset and paginated with the placement of the text, illustrations, and other design elements. I talked about the back and forth of line editing, copy editing, revising, checking and double checking. They were astonished at the amount of work involved–truly astonished. Little did they or I know that within a few days(as the result of an email exchange with my editor) I would revise the first two chapters into one chapter and created a chart with information about the 12 claims for the “first” Thanksgiving!! An intense task, but the result s “thrilled” my editor, and me too! We’re all really excited about this book. Fortunately I finished in time to spend my one-day-a-week with my granddaugher Soph
ie, who just turned 4 years old. Happily she loves road trips so off we went to the aquarium in Camden, NJ. This is the fourth aquarium we’ve visited. We identify them with a unique exhibit, e.g., Mystic, CT, with it’s beluga whales; NYC with the walruses, including the baby; Jenkinson’s with it’s albino alligator. This one has two hippopotamuses and a fascinating collection of sea stars. In the picture (l-r) are: bat sea star, sun (thirteen arms); another bat (dark color) ochra (can’t remember what’s beside it) and a rose sea star. They were in a touching pool, which was very cool.