Peg Kehret Blog

I am often asked how many books I’ve written. It seems I really should know, but the truth is, that isn’t an easy question because the number of books I’ve written is not the same as the number of books I’ve published. Also, I’ve published five full-length plays and it seems to me that those should count. For musicals, credit is always given as “Book by so-and-so,” and “Music by so-and-so.” Do those plays add five to my published books total?

I’ve published forty-two books for children, two for adults, and the five plays. Then there’s STOLEN CHILDREN, which won’t be out until 2008 but is already written, sold, edited, and awaiting publication. Surely I can take credit for that one. That makes fifty books if I include the plays, and forty-five books without the plays. Sadly, the four unpublished books probably don’t count at all, except that they helped me grow as a writer.

The other number I’m asked regularly concerns the charms on my award necklace. This is a necklace that my husband, Carl, had made for me. The charms are in the shape of states where I’ve won the children’s book award. He had the year and an abbreviation of the title engraved on the back of each charm. Since Carl’s death, my daughter and son-in-law, Anne and Kevin, have continued the tradition, giving me a new charm each time I win a state young reader award. People who see the necklace and hear its meaning often ask, “How many charms are there?”

Again, this should be a simple question to answer except I think what they really want to know is how many state awards I’ve won. The number of charms and the number of awards don’t match. When I won the Pacific Northwest Young Reader Award for TERROR AT THE ZOO Carl chose to put the information on a Washington state charm. A few months later I wore the necklace when I spoke at a library in Oregon. The librarians were unhappy that we had not included an Oregon charm, too. The Pacific Northwest Young Reader Award is voted on by children in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and two Canadian provinces. The young readers in Oregon had voted, and the librarians wanted them represented on my necklace.  To avoid hurting any more feelings, we added Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and one maple leaf for Canada - so there are five charms on the necklace for that one award.

If people look at my necklace and, instead of inquiring how many charms, ask, “How many awards have you won?” it still gets complicated because I’ve won several other awards besides the state honors, and those awards are not included on the necklace.

All of this probably does not matter to anyone but me. The people who ask about the necklace are equally satisfied whether I say, “Thirty-five,” or “Thirty-one.” Either way, it’s a lot of votes.  The people who ask how many books I’ve written are just as impressed with forty-five as they are with fifty.  Either way, it’s a lot of words!

Today is recycle day in my neighborhood. I have a large, wheeled bin where I put newspaper, plastic, aluminum cans, mixed paper, and cardboard. Every two weeks I roll it out to the street and an amazing truck automatically lifts the bin and empties it. 

On the night before recycle day, I do my litter walk. I take Lucy along and we walk about a mile, picking up trash that’s been discarded on the side of the street. Last night I filled a large bag, mostly with beer cans plus one beer bottle, one Pepsi can, an empty cigarette package, and a few candy wrappers.

Last year a class of students in Darien, Connecticut, who had read Small Steps, sent me a wonderful gift. It’s a “picker-upper,” one of those long handled devices with tong-like grips on the end, intended for reaching items on high shelves. The one the kids sent me is a gold color and it’s called a Golden Retriever. It’s a perfect name for a dog lover and I use it on my litter walks to retrieve cans that are thrown into the ditch, where it’s hard for me to reach them.

For many years before my area had curb-side recycling, I sorted the cans, paper, aluminum, etc. and took them to a recycling center. I still do that with glass, which isn’t allowed in my bin.  All of my friends recycle, too. It’s a way of life for those who want to conserve the Earth’s resources and I’m dismayed when I attend an event where no effort is made to separate recyclable items from the rest of the trash.

My semi-weekly litter walk is a small thing.  On the other hand, if everyone spent an hour every other week picking up litter in their neighborhood, our streets would look better, and if the cans and papers all got recycled, there would be a whole lot less trash in our land fills. 

Every morning my dog, Lucy, and I walk down my driveway to get the morning newspaper. It is a long walk, as driveways go, through the trees, and we often see blacktail deer. On the return trip, Lucy has tingly teeth. It’s as if because I’m carrying the newspaper, she wants to carry something, too. For awhile she bit off pieces of fern or snatched a small pine cone, but these left debris in her mouth so I began carrying a little ball in my pocket, to throw for Lucy.

She got excited about the ball and chased it but Lucy is not a retriever. She carried the ball a few feet, then dropped it. Sometimes she chased it but didn’t pick it up at all. Either way, the ball usually bounced into the brush and I ended up fetching it, over and over.

One day I forgot to take the ball with me. As I started back toward the house with my newspaper, Lucy danced in front of me, clearly waiting for me to throw the ball so she could run. I pretended to do so. I “threw” an imaginary ball and Lucy took off after it. She ran ahead for awhile, then stopped and eagerly waited for me to “throw” it again. Ever since, I’ve used a pretend ball each morning. She seems just as happy with the game as she is when I actually throw the little red-and-yellow ball, and it’s much easier for me.

If Lucy were a person, she’d be a reader. When we read, especially fiction, we immerse ourselves in a pretend world that often seems as true and satisfying as our own lives. When I am in the process of a writing a book, I find myself thinking about my characters as if they were actual people. I “see” them in my mind and sense their feelings. I laugh at their jokes and cry at their sorrows. If they threw a ball, I would chase it.

 No wonder I love my dog so much.  We have a lot in common.