A Librarian's Lament

I just got back from the library, where I am using old school tools (the best kind, real books made out of paper products) to research my upcoming Gargoyle book. I found one book I really liked, but sadly the last person to check it out must have been eating Cheetos while using it, because there were so many orange finger prints on the tops of the pages, that I got a bit grossed out and decided to buy it instead.




Anyway, it got me to thinking about a poster I made with John Woods Jr. and one of my favorite librarians in the whole world (Wendy Jo Woody) some years ago when we were promoting our first poetry book in elementary schools, There's A Fly On My Toast!, and I thought I would post the poster here for all to see.



Click on the image and it will get big enough to read well.
IF you like it, please feel free to use it, especially in a library!

Here is the text to the poem, since the image seems a bit small to read:



A LIBRARIAN’S LAMENT

I spend so much time selecting books.

Those special one’s that make kids look,

“I LOVE TO READ! THESE BOOKS ARE GREAT!

PLEASE ORDER MORE. I JUST CAN’T WAIT!”

And yet, sometimes, I become disturbed.

The way they treat books gets me perturbed.

When I look down in the book return,

what I see there can make me burn!

This book has water damage, torn pages, too!

The spine is loose! Oh, where’s my glue?

And right there damaged is another

“That wasn’t me, that was my brother!

He used it once to stop the door.”

The whole book’s bent, and here’s one more…

“The dog chewed it, then the dog got sick.

Puked on this book. Oh, yuck! Oh, ick!”

“I was eating lunch, my sandwich fell

into the book, so hence the smell.”

Salami in a book’s just not good.

They don’t treat ‘em the way they should.

Look, someone’s written in this book,

“I was taking notes and didn’t look…

Oh, by the way, that book won’t float,

I tried it out with my bathtub boat!”

How did this one happen? I must ask twice.

The pages are warped, no longer nice.

“I was balancing it upon my head,

to see if I was poised, but instead,

the book fell off and landed hard,

into my muddy, snowy yard.”

SO PLEASE, DEAR STUDENT, HEED MY ADVICE,

CHECK THE BOOK OUT, BUT TREAT IT NICE.

A BOOK IS TO BE READ, NOT EATEN BY DOGS.

A BOOK IS TO BE PONDERED, NOT SUBMERGED LIKE FROGS.

A DAMAGED BOOK IS SAD INDEED,

“TAKE CARE OF ME”, I HEAR THEM PLEAD.

IT’S NOT A BALL TO USE IN PLAY,

IT’S NOT A TABLE FOR FOOD TO LAY,

IT’S NOT FOR BATHTUBS OR WATER AT ALL,

IT SHOULD NOT BE TORN, PLEASE HEAR MY CALL.

TAKE CARE OF THIS PRECIOUS BOOK,

SO OTHER STUDENTS CAN HAVE A LOOK.

HANDLE IT LIKE IT WAS YOUR OWN,

PLEASE DON’T MAKE THE LIBRARIAN GROAN.

I GUESS I’VE SAID WHAT I WANTED TO,

BE NICE TO THESE BOOKS, OR I’LL BE BLUE.

Squirrels checking in...

LET'S ALL GET OUT AND SEE SOME OF THAT AWESOME WORLD OUT THERE! GREAT ADVENTURES AWAIT IN 2012!




It has been a looooong time since I blogged about squirrels, so I thought we'd check in with some of those we moved to greener pastures.
If you go back into the annals of my blog you will see that Tootsie (my beloved Italian greyhound) and I have been fighting a squirrel situation for many years. We finally got the best of them and they seemed to have moved on (for the most part).

We relocated them to greener pastures and had some funny trapping stories (no animal was hurt in the relocation process).



Then I find out they not only went on to a better place to live, but took up some awesome activities. This Christmas I got some postcards from them, thanking us for getting them out of their humdrum existences and onto exciting lives, all of them.
















Here are just a few shots of their new adventures since they left my back yard. I hope 2012 brings GREAT ADVENTURE to you and yours. I know I plan to go on some and will surely blog from some exotic locales as I "research" my next books.











Go to the right hand side of this blog and find the word cloud down aways.


Hit Squirrel and it will bring up all of the entries about the
'GREAT SQUIRREL ERADICATION PLAN'. Some have gone peacefully
and some have been "drama kings and queens."

Guess which one this dude was????

Outdoor chandeliers

Outdoor chandeliers

I walked out my front door
'twas time to take a run
the air bit, oh so cold
but bundled up, it might be fun...

then something caught my eye
it sparkled in the sun's ray
amazing what the cold might do
to brighten up your day!

Go Ask Mom is OUT AGAIN!

Go Ask Mom is redesigned, reillustrated and rewritten (some parts). I am very excited about the new look. IF you are familiar with The Gabriel Book of World Records, you know the awesome design and illustration David Schiedt puts into my work!

All over America, this scene is being played over and over as kids are asking Santa for GO ASK MOM under their tree. Now YOU can help Santa get it done!













I have a great special at my website right now and it is not too late to get the books in time for your holiday gift giving. www.justinmatott.com, you get buy 3 get one free AND a total of only $3 for shipping no matter how many books you order. A great deal AND I am happy to sign and or personalize all copies, just let me know what you want!

You can also order it at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1889191205/ref=sr_1_1_np_1_main_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323824428&sr=1-1&condition=new

I WAS TOLD TIM TEBOW WAS SO EXCITED TO HEAR THE BOOK WAS OUT AGAIN THAT THIS WAS HIS REACTION!

Win a Kindle for you and three of your friends!

I was one of those people who once said, "I won't use one of those cold devices to turn pages!" Then I got an iPad and dipped my toes into the waters of electronic reading. The truth is I have several books on my iPad that I have read chapters from, but have yet to read an entire book that way, but magazines, blogs, websites that provide content while climbing the eternal stairs of the Stairmaster at the gym have replaced the books that would never quite fit in the magazine racks and magazines that spilled off the side when my climbing got too erratic. Non fiction works for me with my device, because I can read one chapter at a time and then move to another app. I have talked to buddies at the gym who have Kindles (which were originally designed JUST to read books) and they love them.

Let's move with the times! Books are being uploaded daily by the thousands and if you are like me you enjoy flipping pages in real books, BUT, there are times when the electronic glow of a good book makes sense. The gym, an airplane, waiting in line at the post office or dentist office. Plus it surfs the web and plays tunes... all in the size of a paperback book.

My own books are presently being prepared to upload to these devices, which will make them available in an instant to readers all over the world.

We are truly living in exciting times! Join the Facebook sweepstakes page and make three of your friends very happy and better readers!

https://www.facebook.com/Amazon?sk=app_172341942779663&sw_id=w-w-f-dec&fb_comment_id=fbc_10150396166152137_20055198_10150445165467137

Join in on the Girl Scout fun!

I was asked to participate in a Brownie Girl Scout's fun with "Flat Juliette". I blogged about our adventure with her. Check it out!

http://flat-juliette.blogspot.com/2011/11/flat-juliette-has-thanksgiving-in.html

luck?

Is there such a thing as luck?

What is the deal with "number deja vu"?

That's the recurring number, that you see everywhere you go.

I have talked to several other people who say they have lucky or favorite numbers. The number 42 has always come up, over and over over the years for me.

42 is my number.

Do you have a number? Why?

Some days you get just what you need.

I am thankful for a young man who took the time to write me a letter.

Sometimes our "jobs" can seem hard. There are times when the part of my job; visiting schools, is exhausting and leaves me wondering if I am leaving behind something that is worthy of the school's efforts to host me. THEN, I get a gift like this letter and it re-energizes my batteries and makes me want to do more.

If you feel this way, remember, YOU are doing relevant things with your life, it's just that we too often forget to tell you.

WIN SOME BOOKS!

If you are interested in winning some books for your child's classroom or school library, go to the facebook page link here, LIKE it and participate in the idea which incorporates both this blog and facebook...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Works-of-Justin-Matott/213624096290

Snow's piling up!

It's cold and it's blowy
it's white and all snowy
hot chocolate is floating whipped cream
I went to bed warm, and I woke up real cold
is this a weird wintertime dream?

I like to go sledding or snuggle in bedding
when the white stuff is whipping out there
we'll put in a movie
pop corn treats are so groovy
my snow hat gave me hat hair

School got canceled today
and that makes this day so okay
we're snowed in our house all together
With games and warm soup
no cold and no croup
it's all because of this weather!

You can't go home again...

I don't know who first said it, but you truly cannot go home again. You can return to the scene of the multiple crimes, but alas, the old place has changed. First of all, there are new people living in the old house, so the house doesn't look like it used to. The ditch running behind the old house seems to run slower than it used to and the water isn't nearly as deep as memory serves. The pond is sad, it hasn't seen a group of boys exploring its banks for awhile. The lake where the monster carp and the legends under the raft, that floated around it seems to have been choked out by the cat-tails and weeds that are growing where once lines were cast to pull in one of millions of sunfish, bluegills, carp and the occasional rainbow trout, which at this point I think we must have dreamed up. The picture of the gatekeepers that sit on both sides of the once "grand" entrance are now surrounded by industry. A storage unit company has built their units right up next to my once country neighborhoods entrance and on the other side, behind the grand entrance sign I used to hide behind with my buddies to watch the cars roar down what is one of the longest highways in the US now is far less grand and looks like it is something someone soon will decide is no longer necessary and be removed.

The neighborhood that once held so much wonder now lives, seemingly only in this author's imagination and memory. Populating the world in which Gabriel Peters and his family and friends live in is a once upon a place that must be kept alive by recording it. How many country neighborhoods have been lost to progress? How many childhood echoes lost because the child, now all grown up has never passed the stories on? Perhaps the memories of a neighborhood that once existed are only in this author's mind. Perhaps the houses even back then were just as small as they seem to me now. As I felt like all was lost and I had somehow just imagined it all, I pulled up the street, past my old home and as I was about to leave and maybe never return I saw something that made me smile. Coming down the old ditch were two boys and on each one of their shoulders were fishing poles. Ahhhhhhh....summertime memories began to flood into my head.

I went from feeling slightly depressed to feeling quite envious. I wanted to join those two boys at one of the fishing holes and while away another summer day with my toes in the water and a fat bluegill wriggling on my line. Instead, I got out of my car and walked down the railroad tracks and found myself skipping rocks across the rippling waters of good ol' Tunnel Number Three trying to reconstruct the events that had happened there .

I got ready to leave and I was feeling more than slightly depressed and wondering why I had expected more, I swear I could almost hear my character, Mr. Patchett, calling from his back yard to warn me of some legend in the old neighborhood, pushing me to return to the echos of the neighborhood that still live vibrantly in my mind.

As I stopped to get gas at the multi-pump gas station with the mini-mart that was in the place one of my favorite places to ride my sting ray had been back in the day, I looked across the highway at a neighborhood I no longer recognized or really could relate to in modern day and saw the brick SKYVIEW signs that held so many memories of my back in the day.

I wonder how the old Skyview entrance structures might look in my front yard on opposite sides of my driveway?

Trick Or Treat?

For years I have been writing about "misfits" and "weirdos" and have unintentionally become my own neighborhood's, just that.


Grizelda is a weird neighbor who the kids discover to be loveable as well.


Drinking Fountain Joe is a funny little misfit who is paranoid about germs in his school and becomes a hero.

Gabriel Peters, the hero in my Go Ask Mom series is a funny misfit kid, SO, wouldn't it stand to reason that the author is a bit of each of them?

On Halloween last year, I thought I would add some humor to the evening. So, I donned a makeshift costume (top hat & billy bob teeth) and grabbed a HUGE jug of Parmesan cheese and a big serving spoon. When I answered the door I offered to scoop some parmesan cheese into their treat bags and upon getting a few wrinkled noses said, "Oh, then would you prefer a package of Top Ramen?" and pulled a big bowl loaded with packages of the soup mix. A few confused moments later and with their parents standing off my porch laughing at my sense of humor, I then said, "Oh, okay, so you are candy kids?" and then dumped a handful of candy into each bag. The kids left slightly puzzled at "that author guy is kinda weird..." I overheard several saying. My wife just shook her head and implored me not to do that to the really little kids who wouldn't understand my sense of humor, which didn't actually deter me, heh heh...

Since then I have had three adults at my appearances mention the "Halloween gag" and prompted me to use that in a book somehow.

Several middle schoolers have passed my wife on walks in the neighborhood and mentioned that "Mr. Matott is a crack-up" and that they would actually have liked the cheese if it hadn't covered their candy and the fact is I actually had several kids return to my door that night asking specifically for some cheese or ramen...

ALL IN ALL I think my gag was a success. How many of those trick-or-treaters will remember that when the candy is long gone? Life is about adding interest, humor and fun. I don't mind being a tad eccentric, as long as they also remember that I cared enough to do something that would create a memory.... likely they will just think I was a "weirdo". BUT, ONE OF THE MAIN POINTS HERE IS; I HAD FUN!

One other thing I did on Halloween night was to have a reserve of my alien books right inside the door for any person who came dressed as an alien. Alas, no one did, BUT, as I mentioned this to a group of 4 middle school age girls, one who was dressed as a "Lady Pirate?" liked the idea so much, she whipped out her cell phone and called her mom, demanding green make-up and some other items.

About half an hour later she showed up on my doorstep in a new costume and received her copy of Aliens - all mixed up.

NOTE to trick or treaters in the Highlands Ranch area; next year come as a character in one of my books to receive a readable gift.... I just might give you some parmesan cheese or Top Ramen to go with it...

Life is short - ENJOY every day!

The words and pictures from an "Optimist"

"The Northwest Denver Optimists were privileged to sponsor local author, poet and storyteller Justin Matott at Trevista at Horace Mann.







He is a dynamic speaker. I wish you all could have heard his message. Below are photos of him during the three assemblies.

The students were not disappointed.

After lunch Justin held two workshops in the library.
This is the time the students learned how, as an author, he organizes his thoughts, his ideas and how he writes, rewrites and rewrites some more.

















At the end of each workshop the kids gave Justin the workings for a story. Then while the students worked on their "verb boxes", he wrote poetry. You will see the ideas and the start of a story/poem below. It was amazing. Again, thanks to everyone who supports the Optimists with their time, talents and monies. Because of YOU, these kids were winners today."

My thanks to the wonderful people in The Optimist Club of Northwest Denver, who care so much about their community. I had the wonderful opportunity to have lunch with the librarian, Cat, who is one cool cat for sure and Trish, who's life is seriously one of a hero. It is SO wonderful to spend time with people who have such rich, full hearts for children! I love my "job"!

TWO FRIENDS, THREE BOOKS = FUN & Self Esteem boost!

I have had the honor of sharing space with the author of three delightful, fun, BRAND NEW books, written by one friend and illustrated by another friend. Sharing the booth I have overheard many great comments from moms and grandmoms primarily about how "that is a perfect book for my _____"! If you follow me, you know I am all about boosting kids self esteem and inspiring them to read and that is why I am sharing the great news about these books that are setting out on their journey to do just that! If you know my books Drinking Fountain Joe and The Gabriel Book of World Records you will recognize that AWESOME design and illustration of David Schiedt. These books are done by him under his pen name. Campbell Lawson is someone you should meet, but there is a place where you can do just that. Please go visit NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.campbelllawson.com/p/somebody.html

A Principal Speaks

I am honored by the Principal Newton's response to my visit in her school and hope to live up to her praise in every school I visit!

As a principal at a highly impacted Title Elementary, I believe it’s my duty to spread the news when something works for our children and staff. The visit from Justin Matott was just the match we needed to ignite our children’s love for writing and reading. During our writing workshop Mr. Matott was somehow drawn to the exact students that needed to be encouraged and motivated. In one session we had five students who are served through our Severe Needs Behavior Program and Mr. Matott made immediate connections with them, without knowing who they were or that they were even in the room. This is the first assembly (ever) that my five have participated in without behavior support and they were writing too! How amazing is that?! In these tight budget times, I am always looking for areas I can cut and trim from our budget…Mr. Matott’s visit is one area I will try to uphold in the future. We can’t wait to invite him back next year! Our kids deserve it.

Principal Newton

Nisley Elementary

Mesa County Valley School District 51

Grand Junction

Often when I visit schools I am amazed that I am never introduced to the Principal or the Assistant Principal. If the school my children were going to was spending the money to have someone come in to entertain and teach my kids, I would like to know the Principal was aware of what happened in his or her school that day.

I am even more amazed then when the Principal AND the Assistant Principal are involved in district meetings (which they both lament the day before is mandatory) and then RUSH BACK to the school to catch all that they can of the assemblies and workshops and stay involved in all in spite of all of the normal, regular demands on their day.

That is what happened at Nisley Elementary School, where I met such leaders, who participated with great excitement during the day and made it clear that EVERY student in the building was loved and respected. It showed in the students AND the staff! We need more people in education like the folks at Nisley!