I’ve started a new category on this blog, children’s books. I thought about going back through my archives and updating my posts to include this category … but nah! I’ve got a little spring fever.

So I’m going to be writing about children’s books more, as I READ more children’s books — and I’m also starting to act more like a kid — which comes in handy since I’m usually surrounded by them.

Today has been warm and sunny, and the girls and I have been practicing cartwheels in the backyard. At my age, this began with some stern directions:

“Girls, do you know what to do if I fall and can’t get up?”

“Dial 911?”

“Yes, but first see if I can talk. If I can still talk, then just go get the phone and call Daddy. If I’m out cold, then call 911 and tell them our address.”

Ah, the joys of aging!

I’ve been trying to reread some of my favorite children’s books, and today I started on From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg. This is about two kids — a brother and sister — who run away from home to hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

I loved this book as a child, and now it’s fun to see WHY I loved it.

Today, I read a couple of great similies in chapter two, both in the same paragraph:

The bus bounced along like an empty cracker box on wheels — almost empty. Fortunately, the bumps made it noisy. Otherwise, Claudia would have worried for fear the driver could hear her heart, for it sounded to her like their electric percolator brewing the morning’s coffee.

I also browsed my new issue of The Christian Communicator, which came in the mail today. There was a nice interview with Shannon Hill, a fiction editor with WaterBrook Press. She offered 12 pieces of advice for writers, whether they want to write for WaterBrook (the Christian fiction line owned by Random House), or other publishers.

Her tip #8 included this:

Being well read is a must for editors and writers. At writers’ conferences I ask, “What are you reading?” You don’t have to be reading what you’re writing. It could be Graham Greene or the latest John Gresham or a Harry Potter novel. It tells me something about what you enjoy or what inspires you.

Well, if I were to meet this editor at a writers’ conference, I would have to confess this whopping mouthful of a title: I’ve been reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

And turning cartwheels in my backyard.