^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

It's late. Michael's out watching basketball with a couple of friends, and the kids are asleep in our room, which is still where I put them to bed when it's just me; they drift off so happily on either side of me, as if the very fact of my ever having nursed them still hums like a lullaby in the air. All I have to do is lie there with the headlamp on, reading, and I hear their breathing slow, watch their lips fall open. Then I can sneak quietly away, even though I have a novel I'm eager to return to: Out Stealing Horses, which is so understatedly lovely that I can't shake images of the dappled Norwegian forest out of my head, even though here it is all sultry New England midsummer, the living room damp and darkly blue and droning with cricket sound… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

You are always forgetting to tell the children things they need to know. Like when you introduce Ben to an old friend who says, "Ben, it's so nice to meet you!" And Ben says, "Oh." Later, when you tell him that "It's nice to meet you too" is a conventional polite response, Ben says, "Oh!" He had no idea. So you're wondering if it's possible that… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

The children have $5 each to spend in the gift shop. Ben fingers a green foam crown, studies a commemorative box of mints with his name printed on it, and compares two miniature models of the statue, one plain and one decked out with Christmas garlands. Birdy flickers a torch-shaped flashlight. They've already been waiting in various lines all day, and it's not even noon yet.… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

Birdy and I are out in the backyard, squatting down to admire the wildflowers. The faint breeze makes it feel as though the earth itself is exhaling, breathing out the perfume of violets and lilies of the valley. Birdy touches a stem of tiny white bells with one finger. She is in pants and no shirt, wind-swept and pink-cheeked and framed by the dazzling green of… Read More

Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.

I want to start a The Giving Tree flickr group, and what it will be is a kind of collective parental revision of the book, offered in a diverse series of newly imagined scenes. Like, maybe I would draw a little picture of the tree lying on the couch with a beer, and the speech bubble over her head will say, "Could you stop… Read More

^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

If I'd married my brother Rob, I trust we'd still be sitting together in the back seat of the car, taking turns laying a single tormenting finger on the other person's side and screaming with indignation. "You're on my side! Mom! Rob's on my side!" Maybe we'd lay our wedding-ringed finger on the other person's side, just to be extra annoying! At least this is what… Read More