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All the news about people wearing masks because of the corona virus reminded me of the old radio show I used to listen to, The Lone Ranger. Of course his mask covers the top of his face, not the nose and mouth like the ones people are wearing now do. But my writerly imagination is…

Okay, I’ve posted enough about the epidemic on my blog. It’s time for something more positive. We live in amazing times, with international travel and instant internet connections that let us communicate quickly all over the planet taken for granted. But I wonder what people from the past would think if they were to time…

My parents were little kids during the Spanish Influenza epidemic. That has made me think about all the plagues and diseases in the history of the world. In ancient times lots of people didn’t live to adulthood, and the life expectance was much less than it is now. Of course hundreds of years ago epidemics…

People (like me) who live alone and must avoid other people because of the Corona virus might be getting bored. We can only spend so much time on the internet or watching TV. I’m a bookaholic, and it’s a luxury for me to have hours of uninterrupted time to read books I’ve had on my…

The news and internet are even more full of negative things than usual. Everyone in the world is concerned – or even terrified – about the Corona virus. But I’m positively impressed with the amount of helpful information out there, especially on the internet. People aren’t only concerned about protecting themselves when they post what…

One of my claims to fame is that while working in a library as a student I became so good at mending books they had me mend a Gutenberg Bible. Just imagine before Gutenberg invented the printing press how long it must have taken people to make copies of the Bible by hand, with each…

In California we’ll be setting our clocks to ‘spring ahead’ tonight and that has made me think about time in general. Morning, noon, night, days, months, seasons and years are natural to our planet because of its rotations and circling around the sun. But seconds, minutes, hours, weeks and centuries are all human inventions. The…

The news about the Corona Virus reminds me of some family history. Back around 1920 there was an epidemic of the Spanish Influenza. My grandmother in California got it and, as a result, had health problems for the rest of her life. The other side of my family lived in New Jersey. The young boy…

There were 42 kids in my first grade class and half of them weren’t learning to read so the teacher had them chant the letter sounds every day while the rest of us did other work. Half of the class had to be held back, but some of the rest of us started second grade…

I read books for kids all the time, partly because I write for kids, but mainly because I’m still a kid on the inside. I recently read The Stupendously Spectacular Spelling Bee by Deborah Abela and enjoyed it a lot. The story is about a girl named India Wimple who is extremely shy. But she’s…