Liebster Award

Today, I have the pleasure of thanking my friend, Sid, for nominating me for the Liebster Award. Sid is a talented writer with a gift for creating poetry straight from his soul. I hope you will visit his blog https://writingrhymes.wordpress.com/

What is the Liebster Award? This is an award that exists only on the internet and is a recognition of bloggers by other bloggers. The award dates back to 2011. In German, the word Liebster means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, valued, and more. (All nice!)

Here are the rules.

1.Thank the blogger who nominated you, and provide a link to their blog.
2. Share 11 facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions given to you.
4. Nominate 5-11 other bloggers.
5. Ask your nominees 11 questions.
6. Notify your nominees once you have uploaded your post.

Let the facts begin!

Fact #1          Animals
My heart goes out when I see an injured animal. Something inside of me yearns to gain its trust so I can help it to heal and make its world right again. 

Fact #2          Food
Not by choice, I am gluten intolerant. I also can’t eat rice, soy, raw apples, and raisins. All of which I used to love. However, I have learned to make delicious grain-free crepes and biscotti!

Fact #3          Hardboiled eggs
When I was about two years old, I bit down on something crunchy in my hardboiled egg. It might have been a large toast crumb or piece of the shell, but someone unkind promised me it was the baby chicken’s beak. I was mortified and haven’t been able to eat hardboiled eggs since.

Fact #4          My violin
I used to play the violin in a symphony orchestra, and my beautiful violin was made by my father who spent years learning to build this instrument and bow for me.

Fact #5          The piano
I love to play the piano and took my first lesson from my mother when I was three. She cut up apples into halves and quarters and eighths to teach me the value of the different notes.

Fact #6          Writing
Becoming a children’s author is my greatest dream. I hope that one day, I can share my journey and my stories with children and inspire them to follow their dreams, no matter what. Story ideas arrives for new manuscripts at all hours. Therefore, I will never stop writing, I will never stop submitting, and I will always believe there is room on the bookshelf for my stories, too.

Fact #7          My rescue dog
I have a loveable rescue dog that had six previous owners. At the animal shelter, Max came over and gave us his you-have-got-to-save-me look of desperation. When I picked him up, he turned over in my arms like a baby and cuddled. That’s when we learned he had been returned by his sixth owner and was scheduled to be put down the following day. I clutched Max to my heart and filled out his adoption papers while my daughter frantically dug through my purse for my checkbook.

Fact #8          Something embarrassing
When I was in kindergarten, the teacher asked if anyone would like to share a book with the class.

This was it! My chance to show how well I could read. “Yes, please!”

Mrs. Larson told me to choose any book I liked from the shelf. I recognized the cover of one of my favorite stories, Dandelion, by Don Freeman. With great enthusiasm and a blush of excitement, I climbed up on the teacher’s chair. I held up the book and panned the cover from side to side to show the class, just like a real teacher. But when I opened up the book, the text was in FRENCH!

Oh well… not a problem for a kid like me. I knew the story and could guess from the illustrations what was happening. I proceeded to make up the words. I was going along pretty well, or so I thought, when Mrs. Larson slipped the book out of my hands and asked me to sit down.

Fact #9          Travel injury
Before landing in England to study painting for a semester, I stopped over in Iceland for one day and went pony trekking. I arrived at the ranch with my heavy, SLR camera and telephoto lens, ready to capture images of the rugged countryside.

The guide advised me to keep my camera on the strap around my neck and only take pictures when the ponies were standing still because I would need both hands to hold the reins. Well, those little ponies looked rather sturdy, and I knew I could hang on with one hand and take pictures with the other. Child’s play!

We weren’t fifty feet down the trail when the guide grunted, and the ponies charged over the rocky terrain. I let go of my camera, still around my neck and white-knuckled the reins. While I charged down the trail, my camera bounced between my chest and my head. Bounce… SMACK! Bounce… SMACK! When we returned to the ranch, my back was so messed up that a couple of ranch hands had to carry me off the pony. They both looked at my face and asked if I had fallen off during the ride into a pile of rocks. When the plane landed in England, I was taken directly to a hospital.

Fact #10          Photography
Before I chose to take this journey to become a children’s writer, I was a professional photographer for over twenty years. One of my greatest joys was receiving the Award of Excellence from the Royal Photographic Society in England.

Fact #11          Totally me
Anyone who knows me will tell you I love hugs. I can’t help it. My dad was this way, too. From his science laboratory in our basement, he would take a break and come upstairs just to hug me.

Here are the 11 questions I was given.

Q1) What’s the one word that describes you the best?
Please say I can list at least three. No? Okay… My word is Driven.

Q2) Who are some of your most favorite writers?
Richard Peck author of the middle-grade novel, A Long Way From Chicago.

Kate DiCamillo for the beautiful way she expresses hopelessness and sadness and love in her books.

Lois Lowry for her picture book, Crow Call, which shares the touching relationship between a father and his daughter.

Children’s poet, Shel Silverstein, for his unbelievable imagination and gift to delight children and adults.

Q3) Tell me about one of the most memorable moments of your life.
A handful of years ago, my Dad came over for lunch. He always asked about my writing and wanted to know what stories I was working on. This time, he asked if I could read some of my manuscripts to him. I chose a few of my favorites. They were stories born in my childhood that have remained in my heart. When I finished reading, my father cried openly like a child. He took my hands in his and said, “Leslie, you’re a writer.”

Q4) What’s your outlook/ motto in life?
Wishing for things to happen isn’t as effective as making them happen. or…
Give until you drop. 

Q5) A thing that you aim to convey through your blog?
My blog is more than a place where I review picture books. Each book I choose must fulfill two criteria.

1. It needs to be a book that is so well written and full of heart or laughter that I wish I had thought to write it.
2. It must tie into a memory from my childhood to today that I can share with my followers.

Q6) What makes you truly happy in life?
Many things make me truly happy and could make me truly happy, but for now, I’ll say an uninterrupted night of sleep.

Q7) What are you doing in this lockdown phase to keep up the positive vibes?
Planting vegetables in the garden that were sprouted in the kitchen.
Reading books I haven’t read in a long time.
Baking – grain-free and making lots of salads.
Taking my dog and tortoise outside for walks.
Teaching our birds new words.
writing and revising picture books and middle-grade manuscripts.
Playing board games.
hugging my family.

Q8) Name one of your all-time favorite movies & why do you enjoy it so much? Yesterday. Aside from feeling emotionally drawn to a number of songs by the Beetles, there is a special scene with John Lennon that reveals the true meaning of success and finishes with a tear-evoking (on my part) hug. And… I love the scene when Jack confesses his deep love for Ellie, the girl who has stayed by his side through everything.

Q9) One aspect of your life that you intend to improve upon?
Letting go.

Q10) If you could have a superpower then what would it be & why?
I want to fly. I can’t imagine anything more freeing than to soar across the sky where nothing can hold me back or stand in my way.

Q11) What do you like the most about my blog/writings & any suggestions for me to improve as a blogger?
Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.” To me, these words say that writing is about revealing the truth, and this is what you do so well.

The 11 questions for the bloggers I am nominating

Where do you feel most content, happiest, or at peace? This could be a place in nature, a place you can only visit in your mind, or a certain room and why.

If you could spend one day with someone that is no longer alive, who would you choose and why?

What is the advice someone gave to you that made a difference in your life?

What event or moment, big or small, made a positive impact on you?

If life gave you one do-over to go back to any age and move forward again with the knowledge you have today, would you take the do-over and if so, what age would you return to? 

Where do you find your greatest inspiration?

Without stating basic needs, name the one thing you cannot live without and why .

If you knew about the pandemic one month before the quarantine, what do you wish you could have done or taken care of?

What accomplishment are you most proud of and why?

Is there anyone in your life you wish you had met sooner and why?

What moment in your life always brings a smile and why?

I am nominating the following bloggers for the Liebster Award.

Maria

Julia

Cathy

Masgautsen

Joanna

Sheila

Heidi

To anyone who would like to answer my question, I welcome you to participate.

Until next Friday.