Laura Purdie Salas at Red Balloon

Last Saturday, I went to hear Laura Purdie Salas read her new book, STAMPEDE: POEMS TO CELEBRATE THE WILD SIDE OF SCHOOL, at the Red Balloon Bookstore in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Laura is a good friend and we're in the same critique group. Plus, the two of us have partnered a lot on book promotion over the past several months. But, this was a fun opportunity to see Laura in action on her own. And she did great!

Laura talked about her inspiration for writing poems that compare kids to animals. The inspiration involved her daughter Maddie, some pulled teeth, and two straws. Basically, Laura thought her daughter looked like a walrus and a poem was born! Whoa be to the children of authors. Everything and anything is fair game!

Then, Laura read STAMPEDE, with the help of her lovely assistant, Maddie, who helped show the illustrations to the audience. After each of the poems, Laura got the audience (children and adults) to make the animal sounds and movements from that poem. It was great to hear everyone snorting like a pig and stampeding like an elephant. (BTW, my friend Bridget can make an amazingly authentic elephant sound!)

After the reading, Laura and Maddie set up fun, interactive stations where people could compare the length of their "wing span" to that of a condor, flamingo and flying fox bat. You could also see how far you could jump in comparison to a flee, squirrel and rabbit. These "extras" are what make a good reading, great. And Laura put a lot of thought into what makes a good reading.

All in all, it was lots of fun to support a writer friend and hear some great kid poems to boot. If you have school age kids, STAMPEDE would make a super great teacher gift. Think about it - there's already snow on the ground here in Minnesota, which means it's almost time for holiday shopping. So get cracking and pick up a copy of STAMPEDE. Your kid's teacher will thank you:)