Fourth Grade Angels

I'm too busy to blog today (story of my life, I know!  But truly, my baby is graduating from Notre Dame this weekend, and a whirlwind of activities is about to ensue!).

However, I thought I'd share a few pictures with you.  Yesterday, I visited my niece's fourth grade class at her Catholic school, Queen of Angels.  The kids had just finished reading Erin's Ring as a class, and they were excited to meet me and talk about the book.  I was somewhat nervous going into it; my hands shook a little as I sat in front of the classroom and held up an old photograph of my husband's Irish grandfather, one of the people to whom Erin's Ring is dedicated.  But those kids very quickly put me at ease.  My niece, God bless her, had had them write up questions to ask me, and I was blown away by the depth of thought that had gone into them.  They were not the kind of questions I had expected from fourth-graders; they were incredibly mature, insightful, probing, and just all-around phenomenal.  Any point I would have wanted to make about the inspiration for the book, the writing process, the character development, the plot development, the messages I hoped to convey--you name the topic, and it was covered by the questions this group of exceedingly polite, intelligent, and creative kids had written up to ask me.  "Wow!  Good question," I kept saying.

I'll probably want to devote more time to this absolutely wonderful experience (the first of its kind for this fledgling author) here at the blog; but as I said, I'm a tad busy to do that today.  If I have time to do some writing on Tuesday, when we're back home, perhaps I'll share more then.  Yesterday's talk with those kids was like the greatest book club meeting ever, so I think it would make a perfect Grace-filled Tuesdays book club post, don't you?

 

These are my peeps!  I just love these kids.

P.S. I found out yesterday that the Harry Potter books include a character named Seamus Finnegan, too.  As much as I love that name (which was inspired by two beloved dogs, if you can believe it--one that we got before we had children and had for about five years, and one that currently belongs to our #4 son), I never would have used it if I knew that!  Sorry 'bout that, J.K. Rowling!