10 Things You Didn’t Know about Me

  1. I once created a self-portrait where I drew myself with my eyeballs to the upper left side of my head because that’s where my attention usually is, in my thoughts. I have Attention Deficit Disorder, which means my brain is filled with a zillion random connections at once that make it hard for me to pay attention. But, sometimes, if I am quiet and listen, I will discover the most amazing things — like a brand new idea for a children’s book!

  2. In my former life, I was a house cat. For sure.

  3. My favorite children’s book when I was a kid was Mog the Forgetful Cat, by Judith Kerr. I identified with it because I was forgetful like Mog, I looked like Debbie, the main character, and I had horrible nightmares like her, too.

  4. My favorite read aloud book when I was a kid was Hop on Pop, by Dr. Seuss because my Pop would read it to my sister and me and we would hop all over him!

  5. I love Italian food best of all.

  6. My school notes growing up were filled with caricatures of my teachers and classmates.

  7. For as long as I can remember, when anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I would say, “an artist.” Then in college, I got kind of confused for a few years. I thought I might like to be a dentist like my dad. I filled my chemistry notes with art and I didn’t do well in the pre-med classes, so I changed my mind. The path to becoming an artist is rarely well-defined.

  8. My two best friends from grade school are still my two best friends now (45 years and counting!). I based The Rizzlerunk club books on some of our adventures as kids. My besties — Dianne and Michelle (Darby and Jill in the Rizzlerunk series) — actually snuck paints from the janitor’s closet and painted the monkey bars during recess! I wasn’t there but I always wished I had been, so when I wrote about the story in my book, I made sure that I was included!

  9. In 5th grade, Dianne and Michelle, were admitted to the gifted class at school and I wasn’t. I was told by the tester that I wasn’t good enough at spatial reasoning. To this day, I believe that I’m bad at spatial reasoning, even though I don’t know if I actually am. Every day, Dianne and Michelle would leave class and go to “gifted.” They got to do all these amazingly creative things. One time I remember that they had to come up with 10 different uses for a stapler. I was so jealous, I went home and did the project myself! (Try it. It’s fun!)

  10. In 8th grade, I was supposed to do a book report on a book of my choice. I hadn’t read anything, so I decided to invent the book! It was titled, Sunsets Over Seas, by Frank De Filitta, a romance novel. It took place during the French Revolutionary War. The main character was Devon from Devonshire. I trashed the book, writing, “I find the book to be very wordy. I’d consider most romances to be similar to this in their most notable trademark — bad taste!” I got an A on my report. This was before the Internet. Good luck doing that now!