School's In

Back after a summer off from blogging and what better way to get back into it than by following Darcy Pattison's brilliant suggestion of performing Random Acts of Publicity. This is where you help friends who have written books (or even people you don't know but whose books you like) and find ways to promote them. Er, randomly. Darcy has a more official setup/plan of action, but as I've been plum out of it, I'm just going to be true to her idea and try various random acts this week. I'll likely focus on people whose books I haven't highlighted on these pages. Bits. Whatever.

School officially starts today, but I'm already thinking about break, so I want to start by welcoming a new book about Thanksgiving. My favorite way to welcome books, as you know, is with a little song.

The book is by Jacqueline Jules, the driving force behind my critique group. I've lost count of how many things she's published since I joined four years ago, but I'm pretty sure it's at least 10 (not counting poems).


Duck for Turkey Day is Jackie's latest. It's about Tuyet, a young girl who's embarrassed to tell her classmates that her Vietnamese American family won't be eating turkey for Thanksgiving. But when she finally admits what she really ate (Hint/Spoiler: It's in the title) she finds that everyone's traditions are a little different. But they're a little bit the same, too.

You can't release a Thanksgiving book ON THANKSGIVING, of course. That would be bad marketing, especially when the stores have been hocking their Halloween Merch since, what, July? So it seems entirely reasonable this is a September release.

Anyway: To the music!

We'll start with Cousin Emmy playing Turkey in the Straw... on her cheeks.

Since Tuyet's family is from Vietnam (where I tried all kinds of crazy things when I visited in '95, but sadly, no duck) I thought I'd link to one of the most touristy things I did during my visit, which was to attend a performance of Hanoi's traditional Vietnamese Water Puppets. I didn't take any video when I was there, but this person did.

And what is Thanksgiving without Thank You by Led Zeppelin? Sadly I couldn't find any live footage on youtube, so there's just the music...

I'm sending you on a bit of a duck chase for this last one. The song's called "Ducks in the Pond" by the late Henry Reed, an old-time fiddler from Giles County, Va. I wanted to highlight Reed's work, too, so I figured I'd send you to this collection at the Library of Congress. Click on the link to "sound recordings" and then go under "D" for duck!

I've planned a minor guerilla action for another book for Tuesday. Stay tuned.