That's my great-niece Lydia showing off Anthony's illustrations.
Our eight-hour train trip to Minnesota on Thursday gave me lots of time to think. Doing the math on my fingers, I counted one, two, three, four years since our last trip to Minneapolis.
Our 2006 trip was all about meeting Anthony LeTourneau, the artist Blue Marlin Publications had chosen to illustrate Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. Tony lives with his wife and three kids on a Minnesota hobby farm 12 hours away from Chicago. Early that summer, Tony had asked my husband Mike to take photos of Hanni and me and mail them so he could get to work. “I’ll send some sample drawings back from time to time,” he told Mike. “That way you can check to see if I’m on the right track.”
A couple of the sketches Mike got in the mail were just a teeny bit off. Hanni’s harness is made of leather, but in the drawings it looked like plastic. In the illustration of Hanni confronting a hole in the sidewalk, Tony had Hanni’s body horizontally in front of me. Hanni is always at my left-hand side, a little bit ahead of me. When she stops, she stays facing forward. I stop, too, gliding one foot along the surface ahead of us to feel what’s there. If I don’t find a curb or the top step of a flight of stairs, or a hole at my feet, I wave one arm back and forth in space. Maybe Hanni saw yellow construction tape stretched along our path. Or a low hanging branch. Or a sawhorse.
I knew Tony would get a better “picture” of how the two of us work if he saw us in person, so on a beautiful autumn day in 2006 Hanni and I boarded a Megabus full of college students and took off on a ten-hour trip to Minneapolis. My niece Caren, who lives in Plymouth, MN, delivered us to a coffee shop where Tony and his family were waiting to meet us. His sketch pad and pencils were all set up already, and he didn’t waste time before asking us to pose. He photographed us, too. When Hanni needed a break outside, Tony followed us, taking notes on how Hanni and I work together. People in the coffee shop thought we were from Hollywood, and, I must admit, we did feel like stars.
Just about everyone who sees Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound now gushes about the artwork. “The illustrations are beautiful!” they say, admiring each and every oil painting. “The drawings look just like you!” So last Thursday, four years after posing in that Minnesota coffee shop, Hanni and I were back in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes to show off our beautifully illustrated book.
My sister Cheryl accompanied Hanni and me on our Amtrak ride to St. Paul, and just like in 2006, my niece (Cheryl’s daughter) was our chauffeur. Caren and her husband Mark have two delightful daughters, and it was a joy to visit Lydia and Audrey’s classrooms at Zachary Lane Elementary School on Friday.
And Audrey got her turn in her kindergarten class.
It was Audrey’s job to sit at my side and choose which kindergarten classmate would ask the next question. My favorite came after I’d explained that Hanni doesn’t scratch the door when she wants to go outside. “I need to be sure to take her out every four hours, though” I said, hesitating a second to decide what wording was appropriate here with kindergartners. “You know, to give her a chance to go #1 and #2. I sensed the kids nodding their heads. Some typical questions followed. “How old is Hanni?” “Does she like to play with other dogs?” That sort of thing.
Then came the question du jour, from a boy near the front of the class. “What is #1?” he wondered. I turned to Audrey for help. “What would you call it?” I asked. She looked at the boy in the second row, and using her quiet inside voice, gave a one-word answer. “Pee.”
Beth I used ‘safe and sound’ during a visit to my friend’s school in Belfast last week and the kids loved it. I read with a small group of them and even though they were only six, they really interacted with the story. The interesting part was when I had to explain what certain words meant. They wanted to know why the book says seeing eye dog instead of guide dog, and what sidewalk meant and why you say garbage instead of rubbish. I told them that the book wasn’t written by an Irish person, even though I wish I had written a book like that.
Thanks for giving me something to keep them entertained anyway.
Jenny,
I am absolutely thrilled to think of my book being read to schoolchildren in Belfast! And hey, I think there is plenty of room for another children’s book about guide dogs, and from reading your blog I think you are just the woman to write that book.
If my other blog readers want to take a peek at Jenny’s blog, she writes about life in Northern Ireland with her first guide dog, O.J. and was one of my nominees for the “Lovely Blog” award back in November. Here’s the link to her most recent post:
http://jenny-theguidedogblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/happy-fourth-birthday-oj.html
haha not sure if the Irish version, ‘OJ and Jen’ would be quite as good. Thanks for posting the link to the blog and my last post. I didn’t have time to write that properly, so I forgot to mention how I gave one child the wrong braille name (hope he doesn’t notice) and how OJ nearly made them cry by not giving his paw when I asked if they were a good class. We won’t be invited back there in a hurry!
Speaking of #1, how did Hanni last on the train for 8 hours?!
Thank you again, I know I’ve said a million times, but thank you. Lydia and Audrey are still floating on a cloud after sharing you with their class. They are sure to be the most popular girls in school. Hope you can visit again next year, when I give the book to the next grades teacher.
Caren, you are very welcome. Visiting Lydia and Audrey’s classes was our privilege, and hanging out with your entire family afterwards was lots of fun, too. Hanni’s fur still feels *great* from all that grooming and attention she got from your girls while at your house after her big performance at Zachary Lane Elementary. Feels like she’s been to the spa.
Stu, good to know Hanni has a twin out there somewhere. Now I know who to contact if we ever need a stand-in.
…and this reply for Stu *and* Bob. Amtrak was very, very good to us, I’ve been delayed on Amtrak trains *many* times before but this one arrived early in St. Paul, and then was early again when we returned to Chicago. Our Milwaukee stop was a longer one (20 minutes) and Cheryl and I decided that’d be good time to head to the bathroom — wouldn’t have to balance with the swaying of the train! We ran into a female conductor along the way
And I asked her if she liked dogs. “I love dogs!” she exclaimed. “Would you mind taking her outside for a break while my sister and I wait in line here?” The conductor was happy to help. I took Hanni’s harness off, handed the conductor her leash, and Cheryl watched out the window as Hanni was led to the train tracks to, well, to pee. “That conductor must know where the third rail is!” Cheryl marveled.
And that, Bob, is how Hanni lasted eight hours. She got a break in Milwaukee.
Hi Beth,
I enjoyed meeting you at Zachary Lane last Friday. I met you before you visited Audrey’s class, my kids are in Audrey and Lydia’s classrooms. I am sure that you won’t forget Hanni being one-upped by a spider crawling near the kindergarten students.
It was funny when the little boy did not know what #1 meant. My kids and I even have #3 and #4 categories–no one really needs to know more than that…….
I did not get to say good-bye, as I had to stop in at the nurse’s office to chat about my son’s diabetes supplies.
Thank you for traveling to MN to visit with Hanni. I think that you made a lasting impression on the students.
Erika Sacks-White
Erika, a confession. When I first started composing this blog post, I wrote many line about the spider that took all attention away from my dear Hanni while we were presenting in Audrey’s class. It truly was the one and only time Hanni has been one-upped by another creature. But alas, there was *so* much to say about my visits to both classrooms, I had to cut somewhre — and poor Lydia’s class barely got a mention! Thanks for mentioing that spider that crossed our path on “stage,” very, very funny. Thanks also for keeping the descriptions of #3 and #4 to yourself, very much appreciated!
Okay, my turn for a confession: I just read your reply today! I google myself periodically to see what comes up. So far, nothing sordid……
Ha! You win the prize for the most-delayed comment ever to my Safe & Sound blog. You also deserve a prize for confessing that you google your own name from time to time…
Well, nothing like a kindergartner to just lay it on the line. Good thing she never has a number three or a number four. 🙂 Glad you got to see the entire Hoover family. We moved to Madison, but miss them a lot. Happy travels.
Julie,
We *love* Madison! I’m going to be there in October to give some presentations for the “2010 Vision Midwest Conference and Expo” at some place called the “Alliant Center”? It’s october 22 through 24, to be exact, which seems a long way off now but will be here before you know it. The conference organizers are trying to arrange for Hanni and me to visit some schools while we’re in town, wouldn’t it be funny if Audrey and Lydia’s great-aunt ended up at a school near you somehow?
What a delightful read. Your book sounds wonderful. I love talking to children’s groups. They have such thoughtful and fun questions!
Thanks for the nice comment, Becky. Especially appreciate your calling my post a “delightful read” — that is high praise coming from a fellow writer!
For those of you who would like to read about another woman’s travels with a guide dog, check out Becky’s “Cruisin’ with Cricket” blog here:
http://www.cruisinwithcricket.blogspot.com
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