I’ve written about Patty O’Machel here before. A writer, special needs advocate and the mother of a teenager who has cerebral palsy, Patty has started her own business to encourage other schools to use the disability awareness curriculum she developed years ago for her daughter’s elementary school. Educating Outside the Lines launched last year, and […]

Whitney and I were getting ready for our presentation to the second-graders at Chicago’s Francis Xavier Warde school cafeteria Monday morning when the first 25 arrived. “Sit real close,” their teacher told them. “We need to make room for the others.” The kids in front were close enough to strike up a conversation with me […]

A week ago today my sisters accompanied me to Peach Plains Elementary School in Grand Haven, Michigan—my Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I were giving a presentation to Brenda Wittkopp’s fourth-grade class there. Since Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound is a picture book, some schools figure the older kids won’t be interested in what […]

My Seeing Eye dog Whitney and I spent yesterday afternoon answering questions from third-graders who attend Goudy Elementary, a Public school in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. The third graders are part of a Friday “reading buddies” program at Admiral At the Lake, a retirement community where I lead weekly memoir-writing classes. Goudy is so close to […]

We’re back home in Chicago now, and the magnificent Mondays with Mike post Mike wrote about New Orleans sparked a lot of questions from friends here. What prompted the trip? Do you have family there? What is an herbsaint? Answer to that first question? Kismet. Our friends Steven and Nancy and their dog Doug are […]