Kate DiCamillo's Blog

I have a memory of being maybe eight or nine years old and stepping outside a house in Philadelphia early one morning.
I had been sent to collect blueberries for that mornings pancakes.
There were several blueberry bushes right by the driveway.
I picked a blueberry and ate it, and then I picked and ate another one and another one.
It was very early in the morning.
The sun had just come up.
The blueberries were sweet.
I remember being happy.
Early this summer, a friend planted a blueberry bush...

I was in Alaska last week.
I ran into a lot of bears.
Bears always make me think of Miss Franny Block.
In Because of Winn-Dixie, Miss Franny Block tells Opal the story of the bear who came into her library and left with a book. She finishes by saying that everyone who remembers those days, that incident, is dead, and that all of her friends are gone.
Opal responds by saying, We could be friends . . . I mean you and me and Winn-Dixie, we could all be friends.
Why that would be grand, says Mis...

From the Candlewick team: Kate DiCamillo's Top 10 Reasons to Participate in your Local Library Summer Reading Program!

Ive been rushing my entire life.
I walk fast and I talk fast.
I hurry, hurry, hurry.
But now, I am walking with an old dog.
And he does not hurry.
He wont hurry.
He cant.
So, I walk more slowly than I ever have.
And the wonder of that is this: I see more than I have ever seen.
Henry and I amble through the world; and the world unfurls itself slowly, beautifully before us.
It is a blessing to walk with a dog.
It is a blessing to walk with an old dog.

I was in the grocery store the other day when a woman came up to me and said, Arent you Kate?
I said, I am.
She looked me up and down and said, But your stories are so tall.
I said, And Im so short, right?
We both laughed.
It is astonishing to me that I get the chance to make myself tall through story.
Its better, even, than Binks Stretch-o-Matic.

Kate DiCamillo for SUMMER READING!

Theres an old light fixture attached to the back of my house, way up high, underneath the eaves, and every spring that Ive lived here, a robin has built a nest on top of the fixture, and every year I feel lucky that it is happening again.
In the morning, I go outside and look up and there she isthe robin, looking down at me.
Ive learned that if I hold myself very, very still, she will go about her business, flying out and back, gathering things, ignoring me.
You can see her beak and her tail...

I was lucky enough to have a tree house when I was a kid.
It was a small one, and it was haphazardly constructed; but there was a rope ladder leading up to it, and there was a trap door to close behind you once you arrived.
I spent a lot of time reading up there.
It was a green and wondrous place, a safe place.
That tree house is gone now and so is the tree, and I am a very long way from where I grew up.
But summer has arrived here; and the world is suddenly, gloriously green.
And what I want...

I remember an article I read in Readers Digest (this was at least 30 years ago) about a woman who was trained as a stonemason and worked on carvings in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
The piece was short, but it was suffused with this womans sense of wonder and gratitude at having found work that was so deeply meaningful to her, work that she loved to do. She talked about being surprised at what emerged from the stone, how she felt as if something were hidden there, waiting for her,...

I saw Edouard Vuillards Repast in a Garden for the first time years and years ago.
I was maybe twenty-five years old.
I remember standing in the National Gallery and staring at that light, at the people gathered around the table, at the magic circle of it all, and thinking: there is where I want to be.
This past weekend, as I went from table to table, from garden to garden, from one lighted room to another, I thought about Vuillards painting a lot.
And what I thought was this: here I am, whe...