Kids' authors really do write back

As part of Madison's poetry explosion last week, she wrote (in a flash, it seemed) a poem about Cam Jansen, the heroine of David Adler's "Cam Jansen" series of detective books for kids. Cam has a photographic memory; when she goes "click," it's her mental camera taking a perfect image of the scene in front of her. Madison wrote this poem:

Cam Jansen is an alien! An alien from outer space!
She is here using her memory to save the human race!
Soon many clickers just like her will be spread across the world!
And every single one of them will be a red haired little girl!

I suggested she look up David Adler's web site and see if there is a contact email for him. There was! She wrote him a nice note, including the poem. He wrote back a gracious note to her the other day, telling her the poem is great, and he's happy she likes his books.

One of the lessons I took away from the children's book writers' conference in January is just how much the feedback from readers means to writers. And it works both ways, too: It's exciting to get a personal note back from an author! It's a good lesson: Just a little effort on the part of a 9-year-old to express appreciation adds quite a lot of value to at least two people in the world. I'm going to try to have the girls write more to the authors they care about; it's a cost-free effort that can only do good.