How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Sherri L. Smith
Even though it’s the end of August, there’s still time to get in your summer reading! Summer is perfect paperback season—you can take a paperback anywhere!—so we’re giving away six of our favorite summer reads over at Pinterest, where you can enter for the chance to win a prize pack of books by creating a board showcasing your dream vacation! We’ve asked the authors of those books to tell us how they spent their summer vacation. Here is what Sherri L. Smith, author of Orleans, had to tell us:
Dear Summer,
I am so sorry I missed you. I hear you were at the beach splashing in the cold waves and toasting your shoulders in the hot sun. I hear there were clam strips and lemonade. Sounds wonderful. I also saw your Facebook update about driving to the mountains and eating fudge in that little town you discovered at the end of the road. *Sigh* You have such a perfect time, no matter what you’re doing.
As for me? Oh, well I’ve been traveling. About a million different places. Well, actually a little less than 300… all from the comfort of my sofa. I’ve been reading. While you were out getting sun kissed and windblown, I was curled up on my blue sofa with my gray cat and a stack of books higher than the mattresses above that famous pea. So, I’ve sailed on ships, and climbed rocks on strange worlds. I’ve sipped tea in dim parlors and raced bikes down rose-dotted lanes. I’ve eavesdropped on hundreds of lives with a simple flick of the page. I sometimes visited all four seasons in one day.
Oh, I saw you outside, waving and winking at me, calling me out into the pool or the ice cream parlor. And for one week, I kept seeing you in San Diego as I walked from the hotel to the convention center 100 feet away. You looked happy. I was happy too, if you were wondering. I was going to Comic Con. A giant, air conditioned, artificially lit wonderland. It wasn’t fudge at the end of the quaintest road in California, but it was fun.
And now you are ending. The buses (and trains and bikes and SUVs) have already hauled the kids back to school. Corduroy pants are on sale where swimsuits used to hang in all those great boutiques you kept posting about. And I’m still here, still reading. Only a dozen or so more books to go. You see, I have plans with Autumn. Yeah, I’m going to New York City for the National Book Awards. Did I mention I’m a judge? That’s what the reading has been all about—finding the best books of the year for young people. So it’s kind of been like a treasure hunt, all those pages I’ve been turning. And I’m getting close to the X. So, in November, when you’re… wherever you go in the winter—is it Rio? Australia? I forget. I’ll be dancing in Manhattan with the best of the book world. Off the sofa, out of the house, and in the city that never sleeps. I’ll tell you all about it next year.
That’s the best thing about you, Summer. No matter how long it’s been since we’ve hung out, we pick up right where we left off and it feels like old times again.
I can’t wait.
Hugs,
Sherri
