It’s already the end of April, can you believe that? And with the end of the month, I once again come bearing some positive news as part of the We Are The World Blogfest. If you want to find out more good things that are happening in the world, check out their Facebook page and look up today’s post. We try to link all our positive blog posts there.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of being a part of the Alabama Book Festival. One of my friends needed an additional YA author to be a panelist on their Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction panel, and I was more than happy to join in! (Look for that video coming soon on my YouTube channel!)

It was a warm day but there was a nice breeze, so when I arrived at my tent a couple of hours early, I was happy to sit down and listen to the panels that were held in the North Tent before ours. One of those panels really stuck with me.

Poets, Irene Latham and Charles Waters, discussed their latest poetry collection, “Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship”. One of the comments Charles made was about the Mississippi Book Festival. They take one day and bus in children from all over the district to come talk to the authors. As part of the event, every student is given a copy of the book – in this case, Irene and Charles’ poetry book was chosen.

Now let me clarify that their book is filled with pictures and is hard-back, complete with a slip cover protector. When the children got onto the bus, they were confused. What was the cover protector on the books? What were they supposed to do with them? That’s when the teachers realized that the children had never owned a hardback book like that before. Charles said when he told that story to the superintendent, the man cried.

The children had never owned or seen a book like that before. You never know, the gift of a book to a child may just open the world up for them.