13 Little Blue Envelopes Giveaway!

In honor of Maureen Johnson’s upcoming release of the Last Little Blue Envelope I have decided it’d be appropriate to do a giveaway!

So what is  The BookBandit giving away this time you ask? A copy of 13 Little Blue Envelopes  that has been signed by Maureen Johnson herself!

Contest will be open from April 14th until The Last Little Blue Envelope’s release on April 26th (at 11:59 p.m.). To enter simply comment on this post, telling if you were to receive an evelope (of any color) telling you to visit a foreign country, which country would you hope you’ll be visiting and why?

One winner will be chosen at random, via Random.org, and will be announced on April 27th. Winner will be contacted via e-mail, and has until April 29th at 11:59 p.m. to reply with a mailing address. If address isn’t received by then a new winner will be chosen and contacted!

Good Luck!

Pacific

Pacific by Jeannine Atkins from Borrowed Names: Poems about Laure Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters

(Laura Ingalls Wilder & Rose Wilder Lane Portion of This Book)

“Two women life their skirts over the blue ocean

Rose picks up a stone, wave – smoothed,

aches with the possibility and the waste in bending

for beauty. Waves crash. Her hands shake

as if holding a carton of raspberries

she’ll never taste. Her knees wobble.

You wanted a house next door filled with children.

Mama, I’m sorry. I can’t.

You have no cause to be sorry. Rose, I understand.

No one understands!

That’s what I thought when I had a baby

who died at twelve days old.

Mama digs her toes into sand

that the fierce sea sucks back. Pebbles clatter.

My mother lost a son, too.

Three generations, we all lost baby boys.

I didn’t know.

You were just three, twoo young to remember

that poor baby, sick right from the start.

We never even named him.

It was just before the house burned down.

Mama, what happened that day?

Rose can’t forget the blazes, blame,

the stench of burning chairs, china, and dresses.

Memory is a acrobat: With each spin and tumble

new pictures shift into view.

There’s more she wants to say;

Am I a terrible wife? Can I do anything right?

That fire was nobody’s fault. Mama wrings cold

salty water from her skirt.

She slips her shoes back on,

not bothering to shake out the sand.”