Thanks to everyone who voted for Zoe in the last couple of weeks, and to everyone who put up with me blathering on about voting for Zoe in the last couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure she didn't make the Top 5. We'll know for sure in January. It was a blast to have a book that was even considered breakfast food for the mind; I'm a happy camper.

A Facebook Friend (thanks Chris!) pointed me to this interview with Kristen Stewart for Irish television. She mentions playing the lead in the SPEAK movie around the 4:30 mark.



Here is a Public Service Announcement Kristen made about college campus security and high rate of sexual assault at colleges.



And because I promised someone, here is a shot from the filming of SPEAK. That's me in my world-famous role as "Lunch Lady." Kristen Stewart is standing with her back to the camera, about to go through the line to get her lunch. This is where my highly acclaimed, tension-filled moment "serves mashed potatoes" occurs. Really, when you think about it, it was the climax to the whole film.



Good Samhain to all! Now our world slips into the dark half of the year. We light candles and tell tales around the fire.

I'm pretty sure that tomorrow is the last day you can vote to put Zoe in a Cheerios box (until 11:59pm Central Time). It's not looking so good for our girl, but the whole thing has been a lot of fun. I realized yesterday that all this blogging and thinking about Zoe has led me to dream up a number of new story ideas for her, and that might be the best prize of all.

I leave in a little bit for the airport because I'll be speaking In Newark, DE tonight at 6pm. Can you come and see me?

If you can't, be sure to tune in to the streaming, live video feed of the event, courtesy of Penguin's Point Of View website!

I'll be talking about Wintergirls tonight (a BIG change from Zoe), which makes it appropriate to point out this Book Recommendation Theme I Never Considered for Wintergirls.

BIG CHANGE IN TOPIC

I haven't had a political rant in while, so I hope you'll indulge me.

There was a time in America when education was totally private: people who wanted their children to go to school paid for it. Eventually, Americans decided that public education was such an incredible public good, i.e., something everyone benefits from, that we moved to a taxpayer-funded system of education, open to all. And, of course, there are still private schools for families who want to make that choice.

There was a time in America when clean water and electricity were available only to the wealthy. The poor pulled up water from wells or dipped buckets into dirty rivers, and lit their homes with candles and lanterns because they had no choice. (My father-in-law, who died in July, did not have electricity on his street until he was 10 years old.)

Our fellow citizens argued and grumbled, but eventually decided that it was a benefit to the entire nation if all Americans had access to water and electricity. So programs were put in place, funded in part by taxpayers and in part by consumers, to make that happen.

Now the debate has turned to health insurance. My grandparents did not have it when they were young. In the middle of the last century, it became a widespread job benefit, and programs were put in place to insurance the vulnerable; elderly, poor and disabled people.

There has been a shift. In the past three generations, insurance has moved from the privelege of the rich to something that most Americans consider a basic part of life, like education, electricity, and water.

(Please let me know if you disagree with that.)

But I am confused. Why is it proving so hard to craft and pass legislation that will accomplish this? I think it's because the chuckleheads in Congress - on both sides of the aisle - are puppets and the insurance companies are pulling the strings. Don't get me wrong - I am all about capitalism. I love capitalism. I am a small business owner and so is my husband and it's working for us. Almost.

The Fat Cats have made the playing field uneven. BH and I cannot join any kind of group insurance plan. (We've spent countless hours examining this.) We pay almost $20,000 a year in insurance premiums just for the two of us. I've thought about canceling the policy and setting that money aside for medical emergencies, but I'm a cancer survivor. If I had a recurrence of cancer without insurance, we would lose our house and retirement savings.

And I pissed? Damn straight. One of my three adult kids doesn't have insurance. My friends who have been out of work for too long have no insurance. People who might take the plunge into small business ownership don't because they are afraid to leave their job and give up their health insurance.Americans die and suffer needlessly every day because health care in this country has become a trip to the roulette wheel.

The time has come for us to agree that all Americans deserve basic health care coverage - the same for all people in all states. If you want a fancier program with bells and whistles, you can pay extra. The insurance companies have to buck up. When your service is considered a public good - a public necessity - you have to trade in outrageous short-term profits for long-term secure cash flow.

If you have decent health coverage through your job, or your parents' or spouse's job, please stop and think. What would happen to your life if you had to pay 20 - 40% of your income for your insurance? How is that fair?

::wipes spittle from face:: I will rant about the evil doings of health insurance companies - denying coverage that people have paid for - another day.

What do you think about this? Is health care coverage the new rural electrification? Do we have a right to health care?

And now for the last beating of the drum to get Zoe in a Cheerios box:

You only have a day and a half or so to vote!!

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify every person you have ever met in your entire life to PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE. I seriously mean that.

5. Do this every day until 11:59 pm Central Time, October 30. It's almost over and then I will stop grovelling and pleading, I promise!

I am going to try and steal as much writing time as I can today, so this will be short and sweet.

Want to hang out with me? Meet me at 6pm tomorrow night (10/29) at the Border's in Newark, DE, where I'll be talking about Wintergirls, answering questions, and probably drinking hot tea. 

You can't make it to Delaware? Have no fear. You can watch a live, streaming video of the occasion on the Penguin POV website. You can even send in a question for me to answer.


ZOE UPDATE & FREE FICTION!

Zoe is sad. Her hair droops and drizzles and trails behind her on the sidewalk. Her sad hair picks up fallen leaves and twigs and discarded acorn tops. Zoe's chances of making it inside a Cheerios box are grim; she has been bumped out of the top five. There are a couple of other books in the running that are friends of hers (ALL THE WORLD and  T-REX IN THE LIBRARY), so that makes her feel better. A little better. Not much, honestly.

Zoe's hair snags on a tree root that has broken through the sidewalk. (you have to imagine the artwork, it's too early to wake up Ard and ask him to draw something.)

Zoe stops. Zoe stares.
Her hair twines around the root of the tree.
Zoe turns around. This tree - this magnificent, splendiferous, amazing tree, did not let a little thing like a concrete sidewalk keep it from reaching for the sky.
"We won't either!" Zoe shouts.
Zoe's hair bounces back. It curls, it swirls, it zooms!

Zoe decides that no matter how hard the fight, how high the odds, she will never give up.

You can't give up either. You only have TWO MORE DAYS to vote!! You can put Zoe back in the Cheerios box where she belongs!!

1. Copy and paste the suggestions and voting guidelines below and send them to everyone you know. Post a link to your Twitter. Put it in your Facebook and Myspace status lines. Tweet. Shout. Storm. Spread the news - only two more days to help our favorite redhead!

2. Become a fan of Zoe on Facebook.

3. Go to Zoe's website and play the Hair Basket Game while you are waiting for your friends to write back and thank you for sending them such an excellent suggestion.

AND, OF COURSE, VOTE!!

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify every person you have ever met in your entire life to PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE. I seriously mean that.

5. Do this every day until 11:59 pm Central Time, October 30. That is only a few more days!

THE TERRIBLE NEWS - UPDATE ON THE ZOE VOTE:

For the first time since the contest began, Zoe has been kicked out of the top five! How did this happen?

Micheal Ian Black. He is a comedian, and actor, a Twitterer with over one million followers, and the author of The Purple Kangaroo. He seems nice enough, but man, oh man, is his book putting the big hurt on Zoe: his book has kicked Zoe out of the the top five!!

The top five books in the competition will make it into Cheerios boxes, so Zoe still has a chance, but only if you can spare her a few seconds today and every day through the end of the week.

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NOW, FOR THE THE GREAT NEWS

Today's Guest Blogger prefers to remain anonymous, so we'll just call him a Friend of the Forest, which he is, indeed.

He was curious about this program that gets books into boxes of Cheerios, so he did a bit of digging. He wrote the following letter and gave me permission to post it.

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"Waking Up with Cheerios....
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This is an apology to Laurie, Liz Scanlon, and about six million children.

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Last week, when Scanlon posted here and wished Laurie good luck in the contest, I wrote back to her and said, “I haven’t read your book, but the cover is captivating. Cheerios probably won't be marking what books are in what boxes, so if I don’t get ZOE on my first few tries, I hope I get ALL THE WORLD.”

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I actually thought I’d be doing a good thing by buying all those boxes.  But, looking back on it now, I was wrong.  I was wrong about a lot of things.

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First, you can actually see inside the Cheerios boxes.  I haven’t bought cereal for ages, and I didn’t know, but that is a cool way to do it so that kids don’t get two of the same book.  Kudos to Cheerios for that.

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What really woke me up, though, is when I wondered how exactly these six million books are paid for.  I knew the authors didn’t get royalties, but someone had to pay for the printing, and the Spoonfuls of Stories page didn’t tell me much at all.

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So I started searching and soon I found.... this site. 

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I was blown away – Cheerios has been doing this for eight years and so far has donated 3.2 million dollars of its own money to put 40 million books in their boxes.  How cool is that?

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I kept reading, and soon I realized the whole point of Spoonfuls of Stories isn’t to promote the books or even Cheerios.  It’s to get books to kids who don’t have books.  In short, I’d missed the entire point.

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Well, I kept reading and discovered that the ones behind it all are the folks at First Book.  So I went to the

First Book site, and while it’s difficult for many of us to believe that so many children don’t have books of their own, here’s the facts:........
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* A recent study shows that while in middle income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children.

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* 80% of preschool and after-school programs serving low-income populations have no age-appropriate books for their children.

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All of a sudden I felt very small.  Like I’d heard a diner was giving away free books, gone in and grabbed a bunch, and then on the way out happened to look up and see a sign saying it’s a soup kitchen.  Meaning those books just might be these kids’ only chance to get books all year.  Something they can take home, call their own, and read again and again.  Opening up an entire world for them and giving them the skills they need.

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I’d been thinking of only what I could get, even when I can perfectly afford to buy ZOE and ALL THE WORLD and so give the authors something in return.  And meanwhile here’s countless volunteers at First Book delivering millions of books to children in need.

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I felt like the biggest schmuck in ALL THE WORLD.

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So right then I decided to donate to First Book and help promote their work.  And to say yes, root for your favorite authors’ books, and yes, get your vote in each day, ‘cause the contest is still very cool, just now for a much better reason.

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As Liz Scanlon says in

her own post about the contest, “The book choices are all mighty fine so I'm not worried either way – it's just flat-out goodness for the kids.”....

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And it’s true.  In the face of what the contest does, it doesn’t matter who wins.  It only matters that First Book continues, and in that everyone can help.

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One way to do that is to go to The Literacy Site.  I’ve actually been clicking on every tab on that page for years, and never knew till today, when reading down through it, that it’s backed by none other than First Book. ....

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Also, if you do pick up a box of Cheerios, another way to help is through the donation form on the side.  An easy way to say thanks for the book and for all the work First Book and Cheerios do.

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Jon Scieszka sums up their mission well: “From my perspective as an author, a teacher, and a dad, what Cheerios is doing through this Spoonfuls of Stories program is exactly and spectacularly right.”"

Me, again. THANK YOU, Friend of the Forest, for the research and the reminder of what really matters. What matters is that children will have books in their hands, books that are just as important to their growing minds as breakfast is for their growing bodies. It will me fun if my book is included, but the really awesome part is that this program gets books to children and when that happens, we all win.


TOMORROW: I MIGHT HAVE TO ANNOUNCE PLANS THAT I, TOO, WILL BECOME A COMEDIAN AND ACTOR TO ATTRACT ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS ON TWITTER AND BOOST MY CAREER AS A CHILDREN'S AUTHOR.

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I have a couple of tidbits I've been wanting to share with you, so get your pens and paper ready.

1. Congratulations to Professor Annette Gordon-Reed for winning prize after exquisite prize for her incredible, important, must-be-read-by-all-Americans book, The Hemingses of Monticello. In addition to taking last year's National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and the Pulitzer for History earlier this year, it was recently announced that Hemingses was awarded the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, awarded for the best book written in English on slavery or abolition.

2. Christopher Moore, curator of the Schomberg Center and one of the generous vetters for Chains, has written a book with his eight-year-old son Matthew based on a 400 million-year-old boulder that is now in a park near their home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The book is not published yet, but the story has been turned into a musical, Matthew Takes Mannahatta, which opened last weekend. Bravo!

3. An independent bookseller (who is NOT my daughter) has written an open letter to all authors about the vital bookseller-author relationship. Please read it.

4. The first two books of my Vet Volunteers series have been translated into Japanese!!! Squeeeeeeeee!



And that is all the Tidbits from the Forest today.

UPDATE ON THE ZOE VOTE AND THOUGHTS ON BREAKFAST TABLE READING:

I know you guys are getting sick of this, but the contest is almost over. Zoe still needs one vote a day, every day, if she is to stand a chance at winding up in a box of Cheerios next year.

When I was a kid, I lived in a house that had the most ridiculous rule in the world: no reading at the breakfast table. This meant that I read the cereal box obsessively. I can still recite way too many lists of ingredients.

When I grew up and became The Boss, I made a new rule: you MUST bring a book to the breakfast table. And now, because all the stars are lining up, one my books - THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SCHOOL - could be the book that winds up on a million breakfast tables. This is most important to me because a lot of the kids who get a book in their cereal live in families who don't have the extra money for books. Because of this fun contest, if they eat a good breakfast, they get a free book. That is pretty cool.

But Zoe still needs your vote. Please!



TOMORROW: A FRIEND OF THE FOREST HAS DONE SOME RESEARCH ABOUT THE PROGRAM THAT SUPPLIES THE BOOKS TO THE CHEERIOS BOXES. HEART-WARMING AND FASCINATING!

Yesterday was a very important day in the Forest: the 221st birthday of one of my all-time favorite Americans: Sarah Josepha Hale.


Yes, THAT Sarah Josepha Hale; the woman whom I wrote about in Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving!



We've just updated the website to share new material with you about Sarah, including a birthday essay written about her by Queen Louise and a game. Check out the updates and tell me what you think!


UPDATE ON THE ZOE VOTE:

Thank you so much for voting once a day, every day! Last I heard, Zoe had moved back into fourth place. Fourth is a lovely place, indeed. But there are still seven days left in the voting, so this contest is not over, not by a long shot.

I am spending today in my writing cottage, working on this draft of my next historical, FORGE. If you want to cheer me on and encourage me to keep the words dripping from my fingertips, the best way you can do that is to vote. Please!



COMING THIS WEEK: I MIGHT JUST DO SOMETHING EXTREMELY SILLY. PLUS, I THINK I'M GOING TO BE IN NEW JERSEY ON THURSDAY. BUT THE TWO THINGS ARE NOT RELATED. I THINK.

You know what we sing on this day in the Forest, dear friends....

::cues Ringo on drums, John on the guitar::

DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA--NA--NA!
shooka-shooka-shooka
DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA--NA--NA!
shooka-shooka-shooka

I SAY IT"S MY BIRTHDAY!

Yep. LOTS of candles on this one; too many to count. Guess this means I should be getting smarter any day now, right?

I am the birthday girl on the right; turning two years old and looking a bit wary about the idea. The cutie pie on the left is my cousin, Barrie Lyn, and that's my suave Dad in the background.

I share my natal anniversary with a number of friends and authors and some friends-who-are-authors: Gordon Korman, Alex Flinn, Michael Crichton, Augusten Burroughs, Pele,Ang Lee, and the ever-adorable, Weird Al Yankovic.

Today is also Mole Day, which has to do with chemistry, not small critters who dig tunnels. And it is the beginning of the time of Scorpio.

My plans for the day include writing, a long run, familyness, and pumpkin pie. (I am not terribly fond of cake.)

I know you've been so busy you haven't had a chance to run out and get me anything. My birthday wish is simple and so inexpensive it is free.

WILL YOU PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE AS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT? PRETTY PLEASE WITH BIRTHDAY CANDLES ON TOP?

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.



TOMORROW: ANOTHER WRITER BORN IN OCTOBER!

Thank you, Queen Louise for doing such a great jump filling in yesterday. (I was off conducting cooking experiments under conditions that sort of simulated the Valley Forge encampment in December 1777.)

Zoe continues to be in the running for inclusion in a million boxes of Cheerios, but there is bad news.

Other books (which are sweet books, lovely books, but still) are surging ahead. ::cues threatening music:: This is not a winner-takes-all competition. The top FIVE books will be put in Cheerios boxes for eager breakfast readers. (For the record, the authors and illustrators will not see any royalties from these cereal books. It's just wicked cool and fun.)

::threatening music again:: Zoe has slipped to fifth place. SHE NEEDS YOUR VOTE. (see below the photos for details)

I mentioned a couple of days ago that authors generally get to see early sketches.

They are just to give everyone a rough sense of the illustrator's ideas.

Don't know if you can see it, but I changed some of my text based on Ard's work.

After the sketches, Ard went back and painted. The author gets to see the early page proofs, too.

One of my favorite things Ard did was to add in a group of gerbils who act like a visual Greek chorus during Zoe's saga.

  (I couldn't figure out how to rotate this photo - sorry!) Originally the cover's background color was white. Then there were MANY discussions at Simon & Schuster. The concern was that less-than-perfectly-clean hands would smudge up the white cover in a hurry. In the end, the powers that be - and Ard, I think - chose the lilac shade.

OK, dear friends. Warm up your clicking finger. Do a couple of jumping jacks. IT'S TIME TO VOTE!!!


HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.




TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! WANT TO GIVE ME A PRESENT? VOTE FOR ZOE TODAY!

Update on The Zoe Vote:  I, Queen Louise, just voted!  Have you???  When I did, I noticed that our Zoe Girl is still in fourth place, BUT she has 11% of the vote.  Please, Please, Please, after you read Ard Hoyt's comments about making Zoe come to life on the page... VOTE!!!  (the instructions are below for those of you just joining us!)

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Recently, Laurie asked Ard Hoyt, illustrator of THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SC..HOOL, to comment on his experience with Zoe.  He wrote:

        I always knew she was special.  I have a dear friend who also happens to be my 90 year old Grandmother LaPreal.  She and I have kindred spirits and became close when I had the privilege of living with her and Grandpa Wayne for a time during college.  She told me stories about her life with such feeling that I tell you, I felt like I lived it with her.  Thanks to her I got to know my own Grandfather Ard who died before I was born.  Well she is a character and has reddish hair and when I told her I wanted to dedicate a book to her sometime, she asked if I would dedicate a special story with a red headed girl to her.   I waited a long time for Zoe Laurie, and when I read your text I knew that I had found just the book for my special friend. 

Each book that I have worked on has appealed to me emotionally first.  As I read your text again and again thinking about visually telling this story, I could feel Zoe's eagerness to please and her hair's unwillingness to cooperate.  I could almost see that little pensive face on the cover, wondering what those locks were going to do next. 

With that in mind I drew this .... and fell in love with Zoe. 

The rest of the images sprang to life once I knew her.  There was some push back on my original Ms. Trisk who I recall being older with a beehive that was way too expected.  A great catch by our editor Kevin Lewis and designer Jessica Sonkin who both told me to update and modernize her a bit.  I drew feverishly trying to find her but was frustrated until the day I saw a woman in a "power suit" wearing a necktie without a collared shirt and I thought..."ooooo, hello Ms. Trisk."

The wild hair antics were so fun to imagine.  The "Big Mistake" Tyranosaur hair is probably my favorite.

Anyway I had a blast breaking the rules at school with Zoe's Hair.  The story really told itself to me visually and I was proud to bring it to view. 



As Laurie wrote in her note to Ard, "Thank you again a million bazillion times for making our girl so fabulous!!!!" 

And now, the time has come...  for you to VOTE and for me, Queen Louise, to beg, plead and, well, you get the idea.  I can grovel just as good, if not better, than Laurie!  Although, she does do a really good pouty face!  (I won't "pull rank" and order you to vote, either; but it would be nice.)  So here you go.... be sure to share this information with your doctor's office (dentist, too!), your child's boy scout leader, your child's dance instructor...EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

For those of you who are new to our game, here are your voting instructions:

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.



Tomorrow:  Well, I don't really know. I do have to go to work in the Forest, probably file some paperwork, let the Creature with Fangs out... OH!  That's right, this section isn't about ME; it's about Zoe!  How silly.  I don't really know what Laurie has planned for Zoe tomorrow, but I can bet it will be very interesting.. come back tomorrow and see!  I order Thee....