A story on All Things Considered last Monday reported that U.S. soldiers are teaching Iraqi security forces how to use bomb-sniffer dogs. The NPR reporter interviewed Army Staff Sgt. Aaron Meier, an American adviser to the Iraqi National Canine Program. “The greatest tool you have in your inventory when working with dogs is love. A […]

While I was reading Frank McCourt’s obituary in the New York Times, a quote about writing his memoir Angela’s Ashes caught my eye. Or, okay, my ear. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I had to write it anyway. I had to get it out of my system.” I […]

A suggestion to anyone trying to lure conventioneers to your trade show booth: Perch yourself at a table between a beautiful dog and a gaggle of enthusiastic women. People will rush over to meet you. That’s how it worked at the American Library Association convention this week, anyway. My publisher, Blue Marlin Publications, generously donated […]

Hanni and I are signing copies of Safe & Sound at the American Library (ALA) convention in Chicago this week. I swim at a lap pool in a Chicago hotel, and when I went to swim laps today I figured my eavesdropping along the way would tell me that the librarians had arrived. No talk […]

Okay, okay, she’s a woman. And yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s Hispanic. But the one thing about Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sonia Sotomayor that inspires me most? She has Type 1 diabetes. Millions of Americans have diabetes. Only a small fraction of us have Type 1, though. That’s the one that is also known as juvenile […]