My cousin Janet Forchuk’s grandson Dustin goes to New Sarepta School, and that’s where I started my day. Janet also came to the school to hear my talks. Dustin was in the first group of the day and he sat up close to the front. The library was a really lovely one, with a reading loft off to one side, lots of comfy giant pillows scattered on the ground. I would have loved a reading loft when I was a kid. There were about 140 students in that first group and they were really attentive, asking great questions. At the end of the session, I signed a postcard for each student and gave them out as they walked out of the library. I asked Janet to hold Dustin back because I had something for him. We got some pictures of the three of us and then I gave Dustin the one extra book that I brought for the entire week – a brand new copy of Call Me Aram straight from Hong Kong. He was thrilled. Janet was thrilled as well. Dustin hugged me, then hugged me again. I heard that he carried the book around like a prize for the rest of the day.
The second group was coming in as the last of the first were leaving. These were the young students – k to 3. Again, great kids, very attentive. They all got postcards too. After that session, a teacher of Ukrainian heritage named Michelle came up to me and thanked me for writing my stories. She had set up my book display area and had brought in some lovely Ukrainian artifacts. She told me that she had many family stories from her parents and grandparents. I told her that she needed to write them. I hope she does.
Cheryl took me back to Edmonton and to St. Martin Ukrainian bilingual school. I had been at this school in 2001 so it was neat to be back. Taras Podilsky was a teacher back then and now he is assistant principal. And another teacher I know from one of the other schools – Natalie Harasymiw – is now at this school. So it was wonderful to see both of these friends. I did two sessions at this school and the students were all pretty familiar with my books. I had run out of bookmarks for the day, so gave Taras a small handful to give out as he saw fit. The first group was grades 6 and 7 and many of them brought in their own copies of my books. We talked mostly about Prisoners in the Promised Land, but of course about Enough as well, because this is Holodomor Remembrance week. I didn’t tell them the story because they already knew it. Instead, I told them about what happened to me after the story came out – the hate mail and death threats. But then the good things, with so many organizations buying copies and distributing them to various groups so that people all over would know about this tragedy.
The next group were the younger kids. So I did a storytelling session with Enough, and then did questions and answers.
Audrey, the librarian from Devon, was waiting for me by this time. She took me to her library. It is a beautiful new library. Her library had been in the high school for years and only recently got its own building. She warned me that they were having trouble getting people to get used to coming out to programming at the library. She also told me that she had done a display of my books and all of them were borrowed out. I half expected no one to come to the session, but four children and a handful of adults came. I did a storytelling of Enough and then, because it was such a small group, I invited the kids up to the front to they could go through the various drafts of my books and see how a book it made. They were really quite fascinated with that. It was a unique opportunity for me to spend that amount of detailed time with a small number of children.
The newest employee at the library is Holly, who is also the school bus driver and a gifted storyteller. When she walked into the room, the kids ran up to hug her. She took me to Leduc for dinner and also to catch the Greyhound to Red Deer. It was so nice to eat dinner with Holly. She has a fascinating lifestyle. She’s raised chickens, she’s been a teacher, and now she drives a school bus and works at the library. She took me to the White Spot for dinner and we both had a thai chicken salad and tea. We had quite the challenge finding the Greyhound depot. She got me there four minutes before the bus was supposed to be there. I had visions of taking a taxi to Red Deer but the bus was a bit late and all was well. They wanted to charge $15 extra for my book bag, so I shoved it in my luggage. Holly sat on it and I zipped it up. I still have about 1000 postcards to give out and they take up a lot of room.
It was an uneventful bus ride and I got a taxi within minutes of stepping out to the curb.
As soon as I got into the hotel, I had a quick swim and a soak in the hot tub. Glorious. I’ve rearranged my luggage and hope it will work well tomorrow. I’m not taking a flight or bus tomorrow so I’ve got my books and presentation materials out of my suitcase and in book bags. Forgot to mention. I’m almost finished the one book I brought for reading – Arthur Slade‘s Megiddo’s Shadow (excellent read) so Audrey let me look through the book donations. I took two: a Gail Bowen and a Peter Robinson.
