I wondered if the youngest kids would have trouble sitting through it, without any pictures, but I asked a grade 1 class and they said they loved it. I heard that a grade 1 teacher was using Feather Brain as a bribe: “If you’re really quiet, I’ll read another page.”

It turns out I use great verbs – who knew? The teachers are using them to teach vocabulary, and the kids are having fun slouching, strutting and stomping around their classrooms.

I did sessions with all the kids, so I was exhausted by the end of the day, but we had a lot of fun.

In one session, we turned the teachers into androids training the kids to work for them, trying to take over the world, one computer network at a time. This gave a whole new meaning to their school motto, “Many Hearts, Many Minds, One Purpose.”

In another session, part of the group descended into the earth and discovered a raptor race track. One teacher was eaten by a raptor and barfed up again – we decided we’d let her live after inflicting that on her.

One class wrote a song. Yes, Feather Brain now has a song! How cool is that? I’ve asked for a recording of it – I’d love to post it as a podcast.

Now I can’t wait for my next visit to Lethbridge in February, to a second school using Feather Brain for One School, One Book.

For now, back to writing.

Maureen

The drive was beautiful – golden stubble in the fields, cerulean blue sky with indigo smudges. We passed a wind turbine farm (for those who don’t know, that’s where they grow wind turbines). The mountains were mostly obscured by low clouds to the west, but we saw lots of the foothills and the prairies. As we neared Lethbridge we passed rugged river valleys that reminded me of the badlands around Drumheller, except not as extreme.

We drove around the University of Lethbridge, with buildings set into the steep bank of a river valley.

The Galt Museum is across the valley, an old brick building that used to be a hospital, with a gorgeous modern glass structure overlooking the river valley. I read to a great bunch of kids, many of them too young for Feather Brain, but they sat still and listened and seemed to really enjoy it. We played “What If” and invented a shadow monster and an evil alien robot; afterwards the kids made up their own stories.

Following great advice from the women at the gift shop, we drove into downtown Lethbridge, with it’s old brick buildings, wide main street and small-prairie-town angle parking, and had a fabulous lunch at a coffee shop.

On the way home, I found Carmina Burana on Mark’s IPod and cranked it up just as we drove through Claresholm. Claresholm is definitely not a Carmina Burana kind of town – KD Lang would have been more appropriate. As we drove back to Calgary the sky turned periwinkle and then a deep teal blue.

Maureen