The catbirds come north from Florida to our house in April. The male declared from our cherry tree that our yard was his. Pilgrim-gray, catbirds sing a very loud, varied song. They are mimics like mockingbirds and thrashers, tossing patched-together bits of other birds’ songs punctuated with a crisp bzzt. Most people prefer melodious mockingbirds, but I love the catbirds’ bright morning wake-up.

I watched them start a nest in our huge Japanese maple bush. Catbirds nest in thickets, the denser, the better. But we have outdoor cats in the neighborhood. I worried about the nest in the low shrub. I shouldn’t have. Catbirds often build a “dummy” nest to draw attention from their real nest. That one they built in the hedge up against our porch. The female ripped up our fiberglass gutter lining while the male pitched ragtime tunes.

This would be our catbird summer. I would work on creative projects and write a “heart” book while catbirds hatched and fledged close by. My new middle grade novel is out this summer, too. My first middle grade book since 2012. It even has a map! Summer was looking up. And then I read, “Not Lost in a Book: Why the ‘decline at 9’ in kids pleasure reading is getting more pronounced, year after year.” Dan Kois’s piece was published online in Slate.

The gist of the article is that kids aren’t reading for fun much anymore. There are several contributing factors. The pandemic, during which young kids learned to read by Zoom, ruined them by the time they were third, fourth, and fifth graders, those critical years to build lifelong readers. They became used to screens and less interested in books. Also, new classroom reading programs in many states emphasize short basal passages, followed by a test. There is little time for independent immersion in real books.

There’s more. Librarians and teachers are hit with book banning. Book banning isn’t new but it’s rampant now with conservative groups taking aim at children’s books. Worse, the sales of middle grade novels—the books that capture those new readers and make them forever readers—are plummeting. “Thoughtful, serious, beautiful” novels are being turned down by publishers because they won’t sell. Barnes and Noble is thinning their middle grade shelves in favor of best-sellers (I can kiss a B&N signing goodbye).

“Kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.”

I pulled this quote from the article. It comes from Brenna Connor, industry expert for Circana’s BookScan. BookScan is “a data provider for the book publishing industry that compiles point of sales data for book sales.” The Circana website states they are “the leading advisor on the complexity of consumer behavior.” BookScan data “is used beyond publishing to track the psychology of the consumer in everything from food intentions to brand licensing . . .” The video shows a disembodied hand leafing through a graphic novel.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have my food intentions tracked and analyzed. I could tell BookScan outright I lean toward chocolate and sugar. But Connor must be on to something because publishers are asking for short, light humorous stories that can be heavily illustrated. To me, that sounds a lot like a chapter book, not a middle grade novel, and panders to the notion that today’s kids don’t have the attention span of newborn gnat. With such fare offered, they’ll never be ready for Charlotte’s Web much less The Lord of the Rings.

Before fixing supper, I wandered into my private library. We have books in every room, including the bathrooms, but the library is mainly books. Randomly, I pulled The Three Owls off the shelf. The 1924 book is a collection of columns by Anne Carroll Moore, head of children’s services for the New York Public Library. Moore was asked by the New York Herald Tribune to write a weekly column about children’s books. At the time, she was working at the brand-new children’s library in Westbury, New York, where the rooftop weather vane sported five metal owls. Taking inspiration from the weather vane, Moore called her column “The Three Owls.”

In the first chapter of the book, Moore explained why such a column was needed:

      Promiscuous merchandising of “Juveniles” with small regard for authorship, illustration, or content has flooded the market with substitutes for children’s books in bright, meaningless cover jackets tagged with various ages of unknown and sadly neglected readers.

       Nobody who knows and loves real books is ever satisfied with substitutes, and publishers’ catalogues of children’s books are beginning to indicate a highly gratifying separation of the sheep from the goats in publishing offices.

        And yet, deleted, emasculated and cheaply decorated editions of well-known children’s books, and new titles of commonplace, spineless, poorly written books continue to flow in and out of reviewers’ offices every year. . .

Moore pondered the request:

     Can I do it? Do I want to do it? That evening I walked down across the fields of Old Westbury to a nearly three hundred year old farm to watch the chickens go to roost. Then I walked back across the quiet old fields in the moonlight, close to the edge of a deep wood, and watched the fireflies come out in a beautiful garden known and loved by the wild birds of Long Island, who are fed and sheltered there all winter.

     Then I saw that the [weather vane] owls had moved in the night. They were pointing north-northeast, and I knew, as surely as Diamond knew [from George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind], that a thing had to be done when the North Wind commanded, that the reviewing of children’s books must not be delayed any longer.

Moore decided she would write weekly columns though the “books must be real books to win a place here.” To the owls on the weather vane, she said,

     Three of you must fly to the woods above Peterboro to-night, and there you will find an artist painting—painting in wood blocks behind a woodpile. He wouldn’t stop painting for any human but he will for three owls who have nothing to wear. He will give you warm feathers and beautiful wings, strong beaks and sharp claws and when you fly over the little houses in those lovely woods, bring back a bit of the song of the hermit thrush that sings by the spring below Edward MacDowell’s cabin. It isn’t going to be possible to edit ‘The Three Owls’ without a new song now and then. It must be real, remember.

I walked outside on the front porch. The catbirds in the hedge by the railing had been quiet lately. I’d spent the last two weeks shooing cats and directing lawn mowers away from there. I figured the female was laying eggs by now. Not only was it quiet, but the pair had been conspicuously absent. Something was wrong. I crept over to the hedge and peered through the thorny branches. I could see the nest. There weren’t any birds in it. But something was. I parted the branches and spied a snake coiled in the nest. I could see it breathing.

No. Not in my nest! I ran to get my husband. Then I raced to the shed and grabbed a pickax. I was furious. My husband and I debated on how to approach the snake. The snake sensed the vibrations of our voices and footsteps. When I parted the branches again, it slithered like spilled mercury out of the nest and through the hedge. I grabbed the pickax to chop it to pieces.

But the snake was gone. Shaking with anger, I carefully lifted out the nest. Inside was one beautiful green-blue egg. The juvenile rat snake, about 18 inches long, had napped around it. Knowing snakes, I took the nest so it wouldn’t come back. But neither would the catbirds. I felt terrible.  

That evening, I went back outside on the porch with The Three Owls. I read a review of Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie, a collection of poetry that “appeals to that part of a child’s nature which is not put away at maturity, but which should be lifelong.” I read about the Halloween Story Hour in Harlem. I read about Vacation Boxes from the Bookshop for Boys and Girls in Boston, packed with books about pirates and horses and boat-building, selected for each child’s current interests, and sent with them to the Berkshires, Nantucket, and Canada. I wished I was a child in 1924 listening to those stories, browsing in those libraries, having my own box of summer reading books.

I thought about the article on kids not reading in 2024 and how a one-hundred-year-old book made me feel more connected to children’s literature, my chosen field, than that online article blitzed with distracting ads and pop-up videos. I thought about the “heart” book I wanted to write and realized it would never sell. It wouldn’t be short, it wouldn’t be funny, and illustrations would be redundant.

Suddenly the female catbird lit on the railing and stared at me. The travesty of her nest washed over me. I explained to her about the snake and how it would take all her eggs. I apologized for removing the nest she’d worked so hard to build. She flitted up into the cherry tree, gave two sharp notes, and flew away. I knew the catbirds had left our yard forever. I was heartbroken.

I cried for hours. I cried because I so wanted the birds to have a successful nest, even though odds are stacked against small creatures. I cried because kids that come to my public library in the summer jump on the computers to play games or watch insipid videos, ignoring the rich adventures waiting quietly on the shelves. I cried because the field I love and have devoted nearly 60 years of my life to is in disarray and I can’t see a better outlook.

But the birds will try again, somewhere else. I have their nest, woven with fiberglass threads from our gutter and strips of plastic weed-blocker from my rose bed, and that beautiful egg. If they can go on, then so must I.

I opened The Three Owls again to an essay by Frederic Melcher, who proposed the Newbery Medal in 1922 and the Caldecott Medal in 1937. Writing in 1924, he said: “The production of a beautiful and suitable book for children gives as genuine a thrill to its publisher as it does its author, and the present high state of the production of children’s books is testimony to the real interest that is felt in all such ventures.”

With a sigh, I closed the book, longing once more to hear the bright, hopeful song of the gray catbird.

Like most writers, I have a ton of journals, yet if I’m in Barnes and Noble, I study the journal section like I’m trying to pass the bar exam.  I don’t need any more yet I’m drawn to them like filings to a magnet. I have bullet journals, Moleskine notebooks, and a shelf of hand-covered composition books where I faithfully recorded observations for years. I’m not sure why I stopped. Maybe keeping notebooks had become a chore rather than a practice.

Yet I’ve always loved copying quotes. If I were to keep a dedicated quotes notebook, I’d dither over which fancy journal I already own or what pen I should use. Buy something new? I’m my own worst enemy sometimes. The other night I looked at a crate of vintage basic readers I’ve collected. They aren’t pretty. They aren’t precious. I bought them to use in scrapbooking.

I plucked out Streets and Roads, published by Scott, Foresman and Company in 1946. I find these readers comforting, with their thick, heavy rag content pages thumbed by countless children, illustrations in muted colors of modest office buildings, telephone poles looped with wires, and humpbacked automobiles trawling along city streets or country roads. Yes, I decided, this humble textbook would be reborn as my quote journal. I wouldn’t make a huge production of turning it into an altered book. It won’t be beautiful. It will be serviceable, as it once served children learning to read.

With an X-acto knife, I sliced out pages to remove some bulk (I kept those pages). Next, I gathered a glue stick, wet glue, fine line pens, my paper cutter, and leftover cardstock. That’s it for supplies and equipment. I cut strips and squares of cardstock to write on. Then I gathered books.

The quotes I want to keep are portions from books, not pithy sayings or anything that would be found in Barlett. When I read, I tell myself I want to remember this paragraph or that exchange of dialog. Here’s where the quote journal steps in. I copy the quote on cardstock by hand, glue it in the book.

For my first entry, I copied several paragraphs from Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison, in which she quoted a conversation between Merlyn and Arthur in T.H. White’s The Once and Future King:

            “Do you remember anything about the magic you had when you were small?”

            “No. Did I have some magic? I can remember that I was interested in birds and beasts. Indeed, that is why I still keep my menagerie at the Tower. But I didn’t remember about magic.”

            “People don’t remember,” said Merlyn.

That quote reminds me to remember that magic is always present and all around us; we only have to notice.

I found a quote by P.L. Travers in a university library book and copied it with my notes for a research project. When I got home, I tried mightily to find Travers’ entire 1965 article in the New York Herald Tribune Book Week but could not. Still, I have her quote:

           Once in a wood, in the early morning, I saw a fox dancing alone just at the edge of a clearing, up and down on his hind legs, swinging his brush in the sun. There was no vixen near, the birds were not interested, nobody in the world cared—he was doing it for his own pleasure. Perhaps most writers are really foxes, dancing their own particular dance without any thought of a watching eye.

 Travers encourages me to take my work a bit less seriously, and have fun with it once in a while.

Just as paging through this well-worn textbook is soothing, so is the act of writing by hand and considering each word as it slips onto the cardstock. I want to keep my quote notebook close by—so many of my journals and half-started projects land in a pile. So, I gave it a present.

At T.J. Maxx, I bought two cosmetic bags: one for storing the journal, the other for keeping pens, glue, and other tools together. The two cost less than those fancy book covers. The cheerful pattern beckons me to step away from the computer and do a bit of thoughtful journaling.

You can find old textbooks at Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I like to leave some of the illustrations and even a snippet of text for interest. Reuse, repurpose, enjoy!

Recently I signed up for a webinar on creating an author platform and developing an author brand. This was an attempt to tether me to the real world, which has sped up and left me in the dust.

The first part of the webinar focused on websites. I already have a website. I had one back in 1998, set  up by my husband. I only remember it featured black and pink and there may have been a pig in the banner. Since then, I’ve designed my website at least five times, first relying on someone who worked in IT at a local college, now currently working with a professional web developer.

But the webinar facilitator said we should have a video on our home page, something attention-grabbing. A video of me doing . . . I’m not sure. If not a video, then at least photos of me in action. There is no action in a writer’s life. Just reading and typing. Extremely dull. My website is more than two years out of date. It’s on my list to update it, especially as I have a new novel out in June. My list of things to do, however, is very long.

I learned that my platform should introduce me to the world and be a place where people can find me. If you enter my name in Google, there are more than one million hits. I have a Wikipedia page that also needs updating (I didn’t put it up, so don’t blame me). I’m not that hard to find, worldwide web-wise. Still, I’ve become a ghost.

I didn’t used to be. But time has a way of sliding one quietly to the bottom, particularly those who aren’t on a ton of social media. The webinar facilitator—who reasonably stated that writers should stay within their comfort zones—listed seven social media formats she is on. However, she hires someone to handle and update all those accounts. Her platform works quite well.

She emphasized how we want others (meaning agents, editors, and teachers) to see us. I used to be fairly visible. I delivered keynote speeches at conferences, traveled for school visits and to give workshops, signed books at conventions. Kids used to come to my house to have me autograph their books. I spent weekends answering fan mail. Once, I was asked to be the Grand Marshall at a town Christmas parade (I turned them down). That was then.

This is now. I don’t have time for Threads, BlueSky, or, God forbid, TikTok. In the last four years I’ve dealt with covid, caregiving, death, covid, accidents, heart surgery, covid, and cancer. I barely have time to take a shower, much less track down book promo groups or start a podcast.

The only social media I enjoy is blogging and sadly I’ve let that go, too. I love writing photo essays. The act of writing helps me figure out things. I like pairing words with one of my off-beat photos. But apparently my blog should also be a tool to sell my books. In the webinar and in my publisher’s author portal classes, and everywhere I turn, really, the message is the same: buymybookbuymybook.

It’s very noisy out there.

In discussing brands, (like a platform only on steroids), the webinar facilitator asked participants what we wanted to be known for, ideally some kind of specialty. Such as a degree in biochemistry or teaching STEM/STEAM topics. My answer: I’m the author of 180 books for children and young adults in every format and genre. I’m 71 and have been writing books full-time for 42 years. I have no specialty for a brand—my career has been steady but like shrapnel.

What is not in that answer is who I really am—someone who has devoted her entire life to the field of children’s literature since the age of 15, more than 50 years. I love every aspect of the field: the stories, the art, the history.

At night, after a long day of errands, driving, emails, writing, sweeping up cat litter, laundry, dishes, throwing supper (often pitiful) on the table, feeding wild birds and tame cats (not the same thing), doctor’s appointments, pulling weeds, taxes, vacuuming, and worrying about our haunted toilet (it moans), I sit with a heating pad on my back and sink into a book from my private library. Something soothing, such as an illustrated mid-century storybook. Or thoughtful, such as the history of fairy tales. For one blessed hour away from devices, I become my non-YouTube-non-X-non-LinkedIn real self.

My platform is small, concrete, steadfast, and simple: the love of children’s books. Not flashy, not animated, not braggy. It will have to do.

It’s the platform of a ghost, someone on the periphery but still very much here.

A diagnosis of cancer hits like a falling brick wall. You know people who have had it, yet knowing people with it and having it yourself feels like being ejected from your familiar home planet. Most of my loved ones have died from cancer and while I hurt from their pain, I was still one step removed from it. This is my husband of 45 years. I am one with his pain, his fears, his uncertainties.

The game of Polaris, as best as I can determine from the board, is a race by four players in aeroplanes (their “home bases” are hangars) through our solar system, minus Pluto, not yet discovered, and beyond into the Milky Way. The players run into pitfalls, such as “Wireless From Orion-Beware Of The Bull” and “Struck By
Meteor-Volplane Back To Saturn.”

The instant a doctor told us, “I felt a mass,” we were flung into outer space. For the past two months, our lives have consisted of clinics, hospitals, doctor’s offices, phone calls scheduling appointments and tests, and waiting rooms. Waiting rooms are holding pens for nervous patients outfitted with large flat screens tuned to HGTV. I’ve seen so many kitchens being renovated, I could do ours with a hammer and a drill.

At home we wait for test results from CT scans, MRls, PET scans, blood work, genetics, and a biopsy. At first, I equated these weeks as experiencing waves and troughs. Waves came in the form of results from doctors and those tests, always worse than we thought. Troughs were the blissful week here and there in which
we were appointment-free and could almost feel normal.

But then I found the old game board and believe it’s a better metaphor. Waiting for test results (always over a holiday) feels like “Stuck In Soft Crust Of Jupiter—Wait Till All Players Go By.” Knowing that a body organ has failed is like “Broken Propeller-Go Back To Perseus For Repairs.” Starting to receive dicey treatments with side effects is like being thrown off the constellation Pegasus, “Kicked By Horse-Glide Back To Andromeda To Be Nursed.”

Then there is “Lost In The Milky Way.” This is losing your identity. People don’t know what to say to my husband, so they ignore him and don’t include him in conversations, perhaps the most hurtful of all. He has become the elephant in the room-everyone is uncomfortable. My husband has cancer, he doesn’t feel well, and it will get worse. I know what people think: that he’s 90 and can’t hear anyway, that he is sick and so visits are strained and cut short.

He is still himself. He’s the same person with four degrees, who once commanded meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has five satellites with his name engraved on a gold plate on each, who met Buzz Aldrin, and who has taught himself quantum mechanics for the last ten years.

I have found only one reference to the game of Polaris, 1923 (there are more recent games with that name). An individual with the same game board as mine auctioned it at WorthPoint (don’t know the selling price). The person said that A.R. Meissner was famous for his postage stamp designs and that his board was originally bought at an estate sale in North Carolina from the estate of the man who designed the Lincoln Memorial.

So, the board I have is a hundred years old and rare. I’m more concerned about the welfare of my husband than the value of this ephemera. It is my job to sweep his aeroplane off that game board and keep him tethered to Earth. Where he belongs.

“Summer Aunts”

I miss
the aunts
who gave us
summers.
Kitchen-steady,
radios tuned to
country and western.

Racing bikes.
Bactine unstinging
skinned knees.

Beaded pitchers of
cherry Cheeri-aid
in the fridge.
Tuna fish, Fritos
for lunch.
Don’t slam the
screen door!

Lazy hammock
afternoons,
Little Lulu, Scrooge McDuck,
chewing Juicyfruit
till the sugar
fades.

Carload of cousins
taxied for
back-to-school
clothes.
Crisp plaid jumpers,
grass-spread
bare feet squeezed
into new loafers.

Fresh picked corn,
hot biscuits,
fried squash,
pork and beans,
sweet tea.

Red Light Green Light
sparked by fireflies.
Called inside after
dark.

Upstairs air
lake-cooled
by an attic fan.
Sun-dried sheets.
Secrets before sleep.
Train whistle
in the distance.

Come back, aunts.
Give those still here
one more summer.
Feed our weary
souls.
We promise not
to slam the
screen door.

That summer she wrote her first children’s novel, “The Mystery of Miller’s
Forks.” She had a Persian cat named Boogers who lay on her desk. Some-
times the girl’s fingers flew so fast, she hit the return and grabbed the cat’s
tail at the same time, a flurry of fur and papers. At night, she read children’s
books from the library. She loved her future so much she couldn’t wait for it.
When school started, she mailed her mystery novel to Harper & Row.
Months passed. The girl wondered what was taking so long. A thorny post
office strike was delaying her acceptance and check! In December, her
original story came back with tire tracks on the envelope. The Harper &
Row editors thought her book was so bad, they ran a car over it.

But the girl had another idea. She wrote a picture book called “Seymour
and the Christmas Toys” and illustrated it with green, red, and blue ink
pens. Off “Seymour” went to Albert Whitman. Back “Seymour” came flying.
Still, the girl was not daunted. She would become a writer of children’s
books. Even when she couldn’t go to college. Even when she became a
secretary (surly but efficient). She just knew her dream would come true.
It did.

Now that girl–me–is 70 years old, a crone by fairy tale standards. I’ve
published 175 books for children (HarperCollins published The Big Green
Pocketbook, still in print after 30 years; and Albert Whitman co-published
18 of my Boxcar Children books). After 40 years working in the field of
children’s books, plus 10 years learning the craft, I feel surrounded by a
thorny hedge.

It began in November 2020 with my first bout of Covid. As a long-hauler,
I worked hard to get my life back, piece by piece. I regained dexterity in my
fingers by putting together children’s puzzles. I walked in our cul-de-sac with
a trekking pole. I bought a girl’s cruiser bike and taught myself to ride to
improve my balance. I was terrible! If I saw a car coming 50 blocks away, I
threw the bike and myself into the ditch!

After that came my second round of Covid (vaxxed, boosted, and masked),
as devastating as the first. Long-hauling worsened, but finally ended Decem-
ber 2021. 2022 brought no relief with my sister’s returning cancer (I was one
of her caregivers), my hospitalization two days after her death in September,
my husband’s fall in December, followed by three months helping him walk
again. Weeks of driving to daily appointments. Weeks of throwing rotisserie
chicken and Bob Evans mashed potatoes on the supper table. Weeks of
ignoring the house (months, really).

During these years, I worked on a novel. The novel of my heart, a fairy tale
about two sisters. I loved every minute I was in this fictional setting and hoped
one day children would want to find this place. The novel gave me something
to hang onto as I lurched from one bad thing to another. I hoped it would save
my sister. It didn’t.

The book was acquired. I finished the sixth draft (total from late 2021) the
day before my cardiac ablation. The procedure was no walk in the park. I was
led to believe I’d be back at work–house, yard, writing–on the third day. It’s
been two and a half weeks and I still have trouble putting one foot in front of
the other. I have mild pericarditis, inflammation around the heart lining, which
causes fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, and chills. I feel I’ve been a
carthorse these past two and a half years, plodding every single day.

Last night, just before I went to sleep, I remembered that girl who so loved
the field of children’s books. How I long to have her enthusiasm again, the
kind of joy I experienced at the beginning as a writer. I have ideas but I
shove them away due to lack of energy and confidence. I still want to con-
tribute to the field I’ve devoted my life to.

I just need to find a way through the thorns.

It’s been a month since my first symptoms of Covid. My doctor has declared me a “long-hauler.” This was a group I truly did not want to join.

Long-haulers have been around since the first outbreak in March. They no longer have Covid. They are not infectious. But they retain the symptoms. Their stories are the most heart-breaking of all. After day 75 or 81, no one wants to hear about your sickness, your fatigue, the symptoms that roll in front of you. Many of your colleagues, family members, and/or friends either don’t believe you, think you are “gold-bricking” or worse, crazy, and just want to move on.

All of my symptoms remain, except the fever, which blessedly stopped two days ago. I still can’t eat. I can’t write with a pen. I make stupid mistakes, even copying an address on a Christmas card. My brain doesn’t work well. I am endlessly cold. I am also angry.

Yesterday, I took my first step on this road. I tried to stay up all day. I fixed my bowl of Cheerios. I did the dishes. I made the bed. It took four hours. I can go for a little bit, but then must stop. Just stop, right in the middle. I didn’t make it up the whole day.

My doctor has asked me to get an antibodies test, for my peace of mind, for my husband’s, for his own. Weeks ago I was desperate to know if I had Covid. Now I don’t care. I know what I know. But tomorrow morning I’ll make the effort to put on “real” clothes, get in the car, go to the lab. My husband and I will stop at McDonald’s for breakfast. I’ll order an egg biscuit, even if I can’t eat it, just to hold it in my hand.

You won’t find us in the daily Covid statistics. We test negative–more than once–or we’re too sick to be tested at all. Our symptoms are usually atypical. We’re often dismissed by the medical community who are overwhelmed with real Covid cases. I’ve read about us. We don’t have the flu or bronchitis or pneumonia or a bad cold. We have Covid, but we are invisible.

I got sick the week before Thanksgiving. I believed from the start I had Covid, but prayed I didn’t.  I don’t have a dry cough or trouble breathing. My fever was low. I didn’t lose my sense of taste or smell. My cough was violent, choking, very productive and made me retch and even vomit. I had a headache, body aches, chills. My temp was 99.4. Each night I was wracked with nightmares and woke soaked after my fever broke. I called my doctor. He said get tested.

My first test, two days later (the earliest I could get; by now it was the week of Thanksgiving and testing sites were slammed), was at CVS. We drove up to the window and a girl handed me a paper bag. With shaking fingers, I tried to open the swab packet. I couldn’t hear her instructions on how to self-swab. I stuffed my test tube in the already-full collection bin and left with little faith in that sample.  I would learn the results in a few days.

I had made an appointment for my husband to be tested at a real clinic. On that same day, I drove myself to a different clinic with no appointment. I wasn’t allowed in the building. I had to call a number–busy, busy, ring, ring, no one answers. After some time someone answered.  I was to pull behind the building and wait.  I waited, my head on the steering wheel, for three hours.

Finally a nurse came out to swab me. She took my pulse/ox and temp, then told me not to leave yet. After a while, a second nurse came to my truck window. She listened to my heart and lungs (both fine), thumped on my forehead and sinus passages. “Does that hurt?” she asked. “Only because you’re thumping.” She told me to take Tylenol and Mucinex and that I’d get a call if my results were positive. “What if it’s negative?” I asked. But she was gone. I had only enough energy to drive home.

My CVS test results came the night before Thanksgiving: negative. My temperature was already rising. 100. 101. Over 101. It was the Thanksgiving holiday (not at our house) and I have never been so sick. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, six days after my second Covid test, my husband went to the clinic and demanded my results. Negative. Two negatives two days apart, yet I was sick as a dog. We called our doctor. He didn’t see any point in getting a third test. He also hadn’t seen any flu cases. He prescribed a Z-pack to keep my cough from going into bronchitis. I was sick with a mysterious flu-like illness in the middle of a global pandemic. I’ve had the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, sometimes in combination, many times, yet I’ve never felt like this.

I booked a third Covid test at yet another clinic. If that test was negative, then I would believe it. On test day, I typed a list of symptoms, and a record of my morning and evening temps, along with pulse/ox rates (my husband snagged one at a grocery store). I’d been keeping a detailed diary since I first got sick, and recorded my temps 4 times a day, along with weight loss. The nurse called me into the special room. Took my temp and pulse/ox, swabbed me. A P.A. came to the door and asked if I had symptoms. I’d shown the nurse my list. She took the list to the P.A., who was clearly not stepping inside, and said I had “many.” The P.A. didn’t look at my list. She just left.

From that moment on, I stopped taking my temperature and pulse/ox. I could breathe okay, except when I was choking during a coughing spell. I knew by my headache and chills when the fever came back. No one cared about my records. I didn’t either, anymore.

When that test came back negative, two days ago, I was relieved, my husband won’t be in danger. And then I collapsed in tears because I was still sick. My husband called our doctor again. I told him about the third Covid test, again negative. My doctor thinks the first two tests were false negative (these tests aren’t all that reliable) and that I may have had Covid. My third test, three weeks into my illness, would be negative. The critical window in which I was actively shedding viral cells had passed.

He ordered a chest x-ray and blood work to check for post-Covid inflammation. I’ll spare readers the ordeal of getting lab work with flu-like symptoms, bringing two of my three negative results, being snapped at (“Why are you here?” “Because my doctor ordered this test!”), sent back to the car, asked the same questions by different people on my phone over and over again, until I finally got the tests. I went to bed for the rest of the day.

I’ve become used to having my skin, especially my back, hurt so much I can barely wear the softest pajamas, lean against a chair, lie in bed, take a shower. To having aching fingers. To always be freezing. To being dizzy and queasy. My stomach growls, but I can only eat a few bites of Cheerios, Cheezits, Lorna Doone cookies, some real cheese. I drink Sprite and water. As of this writing, I’ve lost 6 pounds, a lot considering I don’t move. I can time my fever by the clock. I dread going to bed because of bad dreams and night sweats.

Isolating is hard, even with only one other person in the house. Constantly reminding my husband to wipe down surfaces, clean the kitchen, use the other bathrooms, and, hardest of all, don’t come near me.

I can stay up a little while at the computer, but not long. I can read, some. I take long afternoon naps with cats piled at my feet. Outside my bedroom window, I see neighbors walking dogs, runners, walkers. They seem so normal. Christmas decorations are up; my sagging fall decorations are still on the porch and inside the house. I have a feeling Christmas will be like Thanksgiving, nonexistent.

I can’t write–my brain is too muzzy. I can’t clean my dirty house. I have lost heart. This entire year has been a challenge for all of us. I’ve had career disappointments, serious family health issues, the horrible news we’ve all endured, and now this.  Early in the pandemic, before anyone took it seriously, one doctor said, “We will all get it.” I believed him, and pray that my husband and sister are spared.

I did everything right. Before masks were mandated in my state, I ordered them for us. I went to the grocery store at 6:00 a.m., masked and gloved. When the lock-down was over, I stayed home anyway, except for errands, getting my hair done (rarely), and visiting my sister a few times. I’ve seen no one since March. When the stores stopped counting people, when they stopped sanitizing carts, when they stopped checking for masks, I brought my own sanitizing wipes, and tried to distance. I saw people with their masks under their chins or noses. I wanted to yell at them, but didn’t.

And I got sick anyway. 

I know I’ll get better, eventually. I believe I’ve had Covid, maybe still do, but can’t prove it. I’m just one of the uncounted, the invisible.

When I don’t feel too awful, I think about climbing a very steep trail on Grave’s Mountain, in the Blue Ridge. I started up that trail in October, one of the four Fridays my husband and I left our neighborhood for relaxation, the first since March. He’s not able to hike, but I found myself going up and up, rock by rock. It wasn’t easy. When I got out my husband’s sight, I knew he’d worry about me disappearing into the woods alone, so I went back down.

Right now the stairs in our house feel like Everest, but they won’t always. When I’m better, when I’ve regained my strength, I’m going to hike that trail, climb up and up and up that mountain, alone. I won’t be worried.  No one will see me.

My first inkling there was a thing called children’s literature came at a yard sale.  I picked up a thick green textbook, Children’s Literature in the Elementary School, by Charlotte S. Huck.  I marveled at the idea that people discussed and studied the books I loved and planned to write, that children’s books were literature, like Moby Dick.  I was eighteen, one month out of high school, working as a secretary.  The textbook cost a dollar, steep for 1970 tag sales.  I wasn’t leaving without it.

I didn’t read the textbook as much as own it.  It went with me from job to job, rental to rental, representing a goal I’d reach after I was established in my real career as the next E.B. White.  I was aware I’d skipped a crucial step but couldn’t afford college.  Drive and desire would have to substitute for formal education.  Along the way, I’d brush up on children’s literature.

The publication door didn’t open for me, but I cracked a back window.  My first book, and many that followed, were paperback originals, popular fiction that kids bought with their allowance at B. Dalton or ordered from Scholastic Book Clubs.  The first two published books gained me entry into the exalted Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C.  As a guest at monthly luncheons, I was enthralled by talk of school visits, library conferences, and the easy banter of writers comfortable in the club of hardcover publishing.  I loved the Guild’s fellowship but even after I became a real member, I felt second-class because my books weren’t literature.

This feeling was underscored by the Cheshire Cat, the famous children’s-only bookstore in the tony part of D.C.  The Cheshire Cat was my mecca.  I dropped hundreds of dollars on new books, including texts on children’s literature for my collection.  But I was told I didn’t qualify for an author signing because my books weren’t for the library market.  However, once a year, members of the Children’s Book Guild were invited to a reception and group signing.  For those Brigadoon evenings, I bought a new outfit.  My paperbacks with their photo-realistic covers (so kids would know what they were buying) seemed trifling next to weighty stacks of hardcover books with artistic dust jackets.

Eventually my books were published in hardcover: fiction, nonfiction, picture books.  The paperback originals I continued to write sold in the tens of thousands and paid the bills.  My husband and I moved, too far for me to drive to Guild luncheons.  I fed my children’s lit fix with week-long conferences at Shenandoah University.  How I loved strolling around the campus, eating in the cafeteria like a real student (Froot Loops for lunch!), mingling with teachers and librarians.

Next, I treated myself to Children’s Literature New England, an international symposium held at various New England universities.  A week of heady discussions and famous speakers left me dizzy:  Gregory Maguire, John Rowe Townsend, Paul and Ethel Heins.  I yearned to be a smart, serious writer whose papers and speeches were published in prestigious journals.  But I was still the girl from rural Willow Springs, Virginia, who never went to college.  I attended CLNE for four (expensive) summers, once in England, then stopped, knowing I’d never really belong to that rarified group.  Maybe if I got a degree, I’d be legitimate.

There were plenty of college programs for adults.  What kept me from getting an undergraduate degree?  Math.  You won’t find anyone less inept with numbers.  Then another back window opened.  Vermont College of Fine Arts let me pursue an MFA in writing for children.  I was fifty and had never stayed in a dorm.  After graduating from VCFA, I was accepted in Hollins University’s graduate program in children’s literature.  Now I’d be able to understand the scholarly texts in my collection!  Maybe even write papers that would be published in journals!

On the very first day in my very first class, History and Criticism of Children’s Literature, a student dropped the term dialogic, referencing a text we were reading.  I copied it in my notes, whispering, “Dialogic . . . what is that?  Crap!  I am so up the creek!”  Despite my fears (and three more summers of dorm life), I felt in my element in the Children’s Literature Alcove, a room devoted to sources and books.  I earned my MA by writing passionate papers on the books I loved as a child, ignoring close reading analyses and popular critical theories.  Never once did I use academic jargon.  No one suggested I submit my papers to journals.

I walked with my class at commencement in May 2008 and in June I was teaching in the program.  I enjoyed my students, who only a few months ago had been my classmates, and my apartment (parking space, private bathroom!).  As faculty, I advised thesis students, attended conferences, and listened to scholarly papers.  My colleagues were brilliant.  Most of my students were brilliant.  I felt like an imposter.  Any second someone would find out.  My diplomas would turn to dust. 

Where did I fit in the world of that big green textbook I picked up fifty years ago?  Would I ever make my contribution to children’s literature? 

This time a door opened.  After I’d written several pieces for Bookology Magazine, an online publication about children’s literature.  After contributing to the “Knock Knock” column, editor Vicki Palmquist asked if I’d like my own column.  Yes, please!  We called it “Big Green Pocketbook”, after my most successful picture book.  BGP became the place where I could put my thoughts about children’s literature.    

I count myself lucky to be in the company of wonderful writers, illustrators, teachers, librarians, reading specialists, and other professionals who devote their lives to creating and sharing children’s books.  Bookology Magazine makes me feel real.  At last, I belong.

I’ve been delving into my home library since March.  Just yesterday I chose a vintage children’s book, an ex-library copy of a book I’d read (from a public library) when I was a kid.  Look at the regulations pasted on the inside cover—particularly the last paragraph.   

As much as I’m enjoying my private library, I miss browsing in my public library.  That’s where I find books I don’t know about, and stumble on new research topics.  I refresh our library’s home page, hoping for reopening information.  The question isn’t so much when our libraries will reopen, but how. 

Apparently, priority isn’t on books as much as public access computers.  Those computers are vital for people who can’t afford the Internet and need them for job-seeking and other services.  A recent article in the Washington Post suggests that books, DVDs, tables and chairs will be shifted (reduced) to reconfigure the spacing between computers for social distancing.  

I understand that browsing won’t be possible since the number of people at any given time inside the building must be limited.  I understand that print-lovers like me might be leery of viral transmission from books.  But the article also suggests that people who prefer digital formats—and that number has grown during the pandemic—will switch to e-books and libraries will be keen to accommodate. 

Reopening a public building where so many people congregate and use so many types of services is an unwieldy and gargantuan task.  The American Library Association rightly emphasizes public and employee safety, but policies seem to be left up to individual library systems.  The public libraries in Arizona might screen patrons with temperature checks.  A public library in Pennsylvania is considering special hours for seniors and people who are immunocompromised. 

I’ve been envious of those libraries that allowed patrons curb-side service—ordering a book online and picking it up.  When our library system closed, there was no warning (so we couldn’t check out books for the duration), no way to return books, and we can’t even put holds on books.  While our library system does offer many online services, digital access has no appeal to me.  I’m on my computer most of the day and text with family in the evening.  Enough screen time!  My eyes won’t stand to read books or magazines online in my off hours.

When our libraries do reopen, I realize we won’t be going back to the way things were before.  “Covid-19 might forever change the library experience, but it will never destroy the spirit of discovery and learning at the Cleveland Public Library,” CPL Executive Director and CEO Felton Thomas Jr. said.  I hope he’s right.

After 9/11, the world of travel and security was forever changed.  I’m old enough to remember air travel before 9/11.  Heck, I’m old enough to remember when air travel was a pleasant experience in which people dressed up, the seats were roomy, the food was real and served graciously. 

The most alarming part of the Washington Post article is this: when state and federal budgets are cut, public libraries are among the first to get the ax.  They are considered “nonessential.”  The director of the St. Josephs Public Library predicts they will not receive any state aid next year. They won’t be alone.  I worry about the employees who will be laid off or have reduced hours.  I worry about cut-back collections.

I’ve always said—and have backed up my belief by giving pro bono talks to any public library that invites me—that the free library system is our greatest democratic institution.  The library saved my life and has saved countless others.  It’s a place of refuge.  It’s the center of our community. 

The new normal, whatever form it takes, will be an adjustment for us all, and not just temporarily.  I learned to live with TSA regulations when traveling (though I’ll never get used to tiny airline seats and a bag of pretzels tossed at me).  I’ll learn to adapt to the library’s new requirements.  

I’m eager to leave my at-home bubble and drive to the Salem Church Branch of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library just down the road.  Right now, curbside pick-up sounds wonderful.