Celebrate all the things

There are so many things to celebrate this week.

The first of which is that a picture book won the Newbery award! And it wasn't just any picture book. It was Matt de la Pena's picture book. Matt is one of the most amiable, generous, likable writers in the children's literature world so the fact that Last Stop on Market Street is a Newbery-winning book now, just makes my heart happy.  Matt co-hosted our Banned Books Week #nctechat back in September with current ALAN president Jennifer Buehler, so I had the opportunity to work with him on planning that chat and I can attest to what a committed and giving person he is despite his busy schedule. To see such a prestigious award granted to such a deserving person, I tip my hat to the Newbery committee. I love that we are changing and evolving in our understanding of what literacy is, what is literary, and what it means to be distinguished.

This is probably my favorite Tweet from the reactions of the day:

Average length of a Newbery winner is like 200 pages and @mattdelapena's all Nah man, I've got this in 32. BADASS.

— Cristin Stickles (@ThtsWhatSheRead) January 11, 2016

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Back in October, I wrote a post about the need for change. That as much as I love that my husband and I have made a beautiful home in our condo, I am ready to move into a house of our own in a town that we love -- Ann Arbor, Michigan. The deal was that I had to finish grad school first.

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. I graduated on December 19th. We were already meeting with a realtor on December 23rd. On January 2nd we went and looked at four houses. We fell in love with the first one we saw. On January 4th we put in an offer. It was accepted. We're closing at the end of February.

I said my One Little Word for 2016 was Do. I wasn't messing around.

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I let my students listen to music when they're writing at the computer because for some it genuinely helps them concentrate (it totally distracts me, but to each his own). One of my students was listening to music Old School style this week. It totally cracked me up. I love when students do things to amuse me.