What happened on April 25th?

Litchfield Independent Review
June 2, 2011 edition

By Jan Pease

Did you know that April 25th of this year was a momentous day? Two important events happened that day.

First, since April 25 would have been Minnesota author Maud Hart Lovelace’s birthday, the winner of the 2011 Maud Hart Lovelace Award was announced. According to the Maud Hart Lovelace Award website,

The Maud Hart Lovelace Book Award is a children's choice book award. The purpose of the award is to encourage recreational reading among school age children. Nominated titles are works of fiction of recognized quality selected by independent regional reading groups.

Students in grades 3-5 who have read or listened to at least three titles from the Division I nominee list and students in grades 6-8 who have read or listened to at least three titles from the Division II nominee list are eligible to vote for the Maud Hart Lovelace Award.

Students vote for a favorite title in March, and ballots are submitted to the Minnesota Youth Reading Awards by April 1st. At our library, both the After School Book Club and the Middle School Book Club read nominated books and voted on their favorite choice. It was interesting for us to read books that we often would have passed over. I enjoyed the book discussions, especially as the club members began to express their own opinions.

The winning book in both divisions is Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn. Our book club members didn’t like this book! That’s the fantastic part of being in a book club, as members form their own opinions and express them. Learning to disagree without being disagreeable is a skill we all should develop.

What else happened on April 25th? My world was rocked when I went to the clinic because of an odd-looking sore on my leg which had gotten larger and more angry-looking throughout the day. My doctor sent me straight to the hospital, where I was a patient for over a week. Even with antibiotic treatment, the infection in my leg got worse and worse, with my leg looking like badly-done special-effects makeup for one of those movies where an alien spore pops out of someone’s body. Thanks to the great care of the doctors and nurses at Meeker Memorial, I still have my leg and all my toes and am now growing new skin on my battered leg.

I miss working at my favorite place in Litchfield! I hoped to be back at work sooner, but I realize that it will take some time. My co-workers have gone above and beyond in filling in for me as the school field trips take place. So if you have wondered where in the world is Mrs. Pease, the answer is, sitting with her leg elevated! The good side of all this is that I discovered a new author, a mother and son team who write under the pen name of Charles Todd. There’s always a silver lining, even if the cloud looks pretty dark. See you, soon, at the library!