Alana from New Hampshire made this AMAZING quilt.  Here is the letter (also AMAZING) she sent me:

Hello to my favorite author, Sarah Weeks!!!!
I loved your  book PIE so much that when my teacher started doing book projects, I decided to make mine on your wonderful book.  I am also a seamstress, so I choose to make a quilt to honor your book.  Lardo, Alice, and Aunt Polly were fantastic characters, and so each of them inspired a square to represent them.  I made every other square with delicious fruits to match the tasty, fragrant images that you created in the story.  I also included a chocolate cream pie on one of the squares to represent the jealousy of Alice’s mother.  The rolling pin and the piecrust represent the secret piecrust recipe and how the small piece of crust grabbed the competitive hearts of so many people who longed to win the blueberry award.  Your book was so brilliant and it inspired me to write more.  I hope to write a book like yours someday.
If you are ever in New Hampshire, we would LOVE to have you stop by at our school!!!

I have been receiving SO many lovely e-mails and letters from people who have read PIE and then felt a burning desire to bake one.  I’ve already posted some photos of pie-bakers on previous BLOGS, but I’d like to collect some new ones.  If you’ve baked a pie that you’re particularly proud of and would like to share a photo of it with the world, please send it my way, along with your FIRST name and the city and state you live in.

May, 2013.  (Below, left)Faith from Kansas City, MO celebrated Mother’s Day by baking a lemon chess pie. (below right) A teacher and  two fifth graders at Cold Spring Elementary in Doylestown, PA made three beautiful pies which they presented to me at the end of the day.  Thank you Mrs. P, Kim and Lindsey!

Delicious!

Thanks to Michele Eng, Media Specialist extraordinaire,  Hawes School in Ridgewood, NJ.  had a MAJOR pie bake-off prior to my visit.   Check out the winning pies–a Caramel Apple pie made by Michael and an Ultimate Oreo Pie made by Aidan and Nico!  Who says guys can’t bake? Way to go!  Thank you one and all for a terrific (and delicious!) day at Hawes.

This peach pie was baked by a mom whose daughter had just read PIE.  She made some adjustments to the recipe which you might find interesting.  Check out her BLOG: meagenrice.wordpress.com

Meet Aiden from Mahopec, New York.  He and his mom listened to the audio version of PIE together and then decided to try out the buttermilk pie recipe.  Not everyone is willing to take a chance on a pie that has buttermilk in it –but believe me when I tell you, it tastes WAY better than it sounds.  Right Aiden?

These two sisters from Farmington, Arkansas are planning to bake all 14 pies in the book!  Check out their BLOG.  Abby and Molly have made nine pies so far, and they are rating each one on a scale of one to twenty.  So far the peach pie is in first place.  http://www.littlehomeschoolontheprairie.com/kids-corner.html

This beautiful peach pie with a delicious cobbler topping was made by Jasmine and Gaby, from San Francisco, California.  That’s Jasmine peeking over the counter at us.  Nice work girls!

Look at these cool little apple pies MacKenzie made!  Instead of using a pie crust on the bottom, she cored the apples, and put pie filling inside, then covered the tops with a lattice crust. Pretty clever, huh?  Oh, and by the way – she picked those apples in her own backyard in North Carolina. I don’t know baout you, but I’m impressed!

Meet Hannah.  She’s from North Kingstown, Rhode Island and she and her mom baked this gorgeous blueberry pie together in honor of the Blueberry Award.   She says that she is planning to bake ALL the pies in the book too.  Next in line…..sour cherry!  Aunt Polly would be proud.

Meet Rowan Blanchard.  She’s talented and sweet and cute as a button, as my mother would say.  You might recognize her from Spy Kids.  Rowan is an avid reader – you can see some of her favorite books in the photo above – and if all goes as planned…. she’ll be the actress playing Heidi in the movie of So B. It!!!!!!  Things in Hollywood sometimes take a while, and this project is no exception, but I got word this week from my wonderful agent, Jason Dravis that it’s moving forward and filming will begin in Spring 2013. I am beyond excited to share this news with you. So many of you have written to me asking if the movie is going to happen.  Thank you for your interest and for your faith in the book. Keep your fingers and toes crossed and with any luck,  I’ll see you at the movies!

Shhhhh, here’s a little secret…  There may be a movie made of Oggie Cooder too!  I’ll let you know as soon as it’s official. Prrrrip!  Prrrip!

TO SKYPE OR NOT TO SKYPE

I’ve been doing author visits for more than twenty years.  I love having an opportunity to meet my readers in person.  With school budgets being cut left and right, sometimes schools can’t afford to bring in an author, so they turn to the next best thing, SKYPE.   I recently had the pleasure of SKYPING with some 4^th graders in Shelton CT.  Their wonderful teacher, Mrs. Pollack got in touch with me and together we planned the visit. The format would be Q&A, with the discussion being generated by the questions the kids wanted to ask.  Mrs. Pollack’s class was SO well prepared they made my job easy!  They had read many of my books together in class, and they came up with some really interesting questions. We had some technical glitches, due to weather  in New York, but in the end we had a terrific time chatting about books, and pies and just getting to know each other.  BTW, my SKYPE visit might never have taken place if it hadn’t been for a certain boy with a mohawk in Mrs/ Pollack’s class who loved pie so much he just had to read PIE!

Kids always ask me, “Where do you get your ideas?”  It’s hard to explain sometimes.  I try to keep my eyes and ears and heart open to anything that might come along and suggest an idea for a story to me.  This week I discovered a wonderful pothole in my street.  Wonderful and pothole do not normally go together in the same sentence.  But see for yourself.  This is the same pothole before and after a rainstorm.  Whether or not I end up using this image in a story some day I’m still glad I saw it.  The world is a wonderful place, don’t you think?

Have you read Peter Reynold’s wonderful book, THE DOT?  Well, Terry Shay, an amazing educator in Iowa and founder of International Dot Day, has started a new site called “Celebri-DOTS”.  He’s asked some authors, illustrators, and other celebrities to create dots and sign them so they can be placed on the site: http://celebridots.blogspot.com.

Check out my contribution!  You know me, any excuse to bake a pie…

International Dot Day is a celebration of creativity around the globe that grows bigger every year. Over 17,000 students and 1,000 adults created their own dots on or around International Dot Day http://www.fablevisionlearning.com/dotday last year.

So join the fun and get your dot on!!!!! –SW

Have you considered starting a Mother/Daughter bookclub?  Looking for a great book to read together?   These girls chose PIE for their club read in Santa Barbara CA.

FYI Scholastic is in the process of creating a Mother/Daughter bookclub program.  I think they’re even going to be offering a prize of a free SKYPE visit with one of the authors!  I’m not sure when this program will be starting, but you can probably  go to the Scholastic website and find out.  Here’s what one of the mom’s in Santa Barbara had to say:

“We had a great discussion that brought up some silly moments of what they would name their own pie store, to some more serious ones about if they’d be willing to forego a salary in exchange for doing something they truly loved to do and how to deal with the loss of a loved one.  These 8 & 9 year olds constantly amaze me with their insights and ideas.”

It’s been a very busy spring.  I spent two amazing weeks visiting schools in Illinois and Iowa.  I love the midwest!!!!  Here are some of my favorite memories….

Look! A cake with my picture on it!  An Iowa mom made this for me.

What do you do if you have an hour to kill in Cedar Falls?  Go bowling, of course!

I’m always happy to see artwork on the wall when I visit a school.  Check out Mrs. McNosh hanging her hubby on the clothesline and the wall of pies!

Pies, pies everywhere.  If you haven’t read PIE yet, you might enjoy it.  It’s part mystery, part love story (love of PIES that is!).  Some people have called it “wholesome”  and most who read it seem to feel inspired to bake pies. There are 14 recipes included in the book. I’ve tried them all, of course  and can vouch for the fact that they are pretty easy to make and VERY tasty.  This young baker from Highland Park made the chocolate cream pie.  It’s an old family recipe contributed by my good friend and fellow author, Pam Munoz Ryan.  Yum!

This morning I am catching up on some fan mail that collected while I was in the midwest doing author visits.  Among the envelopes was a packet of letters from a school in Shelton, CT.  I can’t remember the last time I received such thoughtful responses from a class of fourth graders.  Ms. Pollack, the teacher also wrote me a letter and I must admit that it brought tears to my eyes.  Her class didn’t just read one of my novels –they read all of them!  Pie and So B. It and As Simple as it Seems and Jumping the Scratch. WOW.  Talk about a thorough author study!  I wish I could share all of their wonderful letters here, but a photo will have to suffice.  Thank you Ms. Pollack’s fourth graders for totally making my day. You’ll be receiving a little something from me in the mail soon too!

Glenolden Elementary School in Glenolden, PA held their 4th annual “One Book One School” program in February and guess what book they featured?  PIE!  Hooray!  Each participating family received a cardboard pie box containing a copy of the book and suggestions for fun PIE related activities to do together.  There was also a pie baking contest.  The winners received…BLUEBERRY AWARDS!  Afterwards I was able to SKYPE with some of the students to answer questions about the book and hear about the PIE party.  Ms. Smedile, the school librarian was kind enough to send along a few photos. Check out the wonderful decorated classroom door.  Love that Lardo!