She LOVES our illustrations!

I wrote back to our new author friend to invite her to check out our illustrations...

Dear Alison,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my first graders' messages. They are all thrilled that a FAMOUS AUTHOR would think they were important enough to write back to. They took your challenge quite to heart and decided to draw illustrations for you to show what they think the infamous "first grader" looks like in Countdown to Kindergarten. I have posted their drawings on our class blog. If you have a chance to check them out, we would all be honored.

And if I may be a gushing adult fan for a moment, I have read (and reread) Shadow Baby, Rainlight, and Was it Beautiful? and love them all. You are my favorite kind of author, one whose work makes me feel simultaneously heartbroken and hopeful. And I discovered Someday shortly after our daughter was born...I still can't read it without weeping. You have great taste in children's book illustrators, by the way! Peter H. Reynolds is among my favorites! Okay, thanks for letting me gush a bit. :-)

All the best to you and don't feel bad if you don't have time to keep writing back!


And she wrote back to tell us she LOVES them!


Dear JoAnna,

You're a doll! Thank you for your kind words about my adult novels. To be honest, the characters in them feel real to me, and I sometimes wonder what Crystal or William T. or Clara are up to these days. You might like "All Rivers Flow to the Sea" as well, because some of the same characters appear and re-appear in that one too.

Tell those sweet students of yours that I LOVE their illustrations. What a great job they did! Your website/blog is terrific.

And thanks, again, for mentioning Someday. That one is near and dear to my own heart - I wrote it after watching my older daughter sleeping one night.

Your fan,

Alison