From: s creech rigg <creech>
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 04:38:07 +0000

First: Hello CCBC, and a huge thanks to all of you who made my trip to Madison so memorable! What an audience! What a city! What a grand thing the CCBC is!

Second: This is in reference to Robin Gibsn's discovery of an alternative meaning for 'gooseberry' ('a third wheel, an extra person in the company of a couple') and her question relating to Walk Two Moons: <Did Sharon Creech know this???>

The answer is: nope, I didn't know that. Wow! Although I'm not sure Gram would have been thrilled to know that she was a third wheel, it does reflect eerily on the relationship between Sal and Gramps, especially at the end of the book.

And this reminds me of something I discovered when I was visiting a seventh-grade class who were mapping out the Hiddles' route across the U.S. One student suddenly shouted, "Gooseberry! There's a town called Gooseberry!" And sure enough there was, in--Montana? Wisconsin?? (Can't find it now on my own map and would be happy to be re-enlightened...) And, if I recall correctly, Gooseberry wasn't too far off the Hiddles' route. The student conversation which followed went something like this:

        "Why didn't the Hiddles go to Gooseberry?"
        "Gram would have wanted to."
        "She really, really, really would have wanted to."
        "Gramps would have swerved right off the road and aimed for Gooseberry."
        "So why didn't they go there?"
        (Long pause while they looked beseechingly at me. Then one student came to my rescue....)
        "Maybe they didn't see it on the map. . ."

        Yeah, that's what I figure.

        xx Sharon Creech
Received on Fri 03 Nov 1995 10:38:07 PM CST