I admit it--I might need oxygen. Ozzy's aversion to socks won him a dragonfly award. I didn't even know I loved dragonflies, but I do now! The Purple Dragonfly Book Award is a worldwide competition to celebrate the best in children’s books. Ozzy Ox Stands Against Socks won this distinction based on scoring by industry experts ----including the "real" experts: children! Dragonfly Awards are granted to books based on content, originality, overall readability and design/illustration. Ozzy's sock story won in the category of Picture Books for Ages Six and Up. Surprising, since I, as an author, have heard from parents of children as young as 18 months that their children request Ozzy Ox over and over. One father even hid Ozzy Ox Candy Stash from his three-year-old because he had read it on repeat over months and months at the request--no, demands--of his son! Kudos and THANK YOU to Illustrator Emily Hagen on the appeal of her beautiful artwork. I always say: the PICTURES in a picture book are the most critical component! They were absolutely critical to the Purple Dragonfly Award. Ozzy Ox Stands Against Socks wouldn't be an award winner--and wouldn't even be a book--without the marvelous talent of Emily Hagen! Emily, thank you SO much for bringing Ozzy to life!

It's been a couple weeks now that we opened the gate on Ozzy Ox. He's found his way online on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. And now he's knocking on the doors of local bookstores. Our first reading--and book signing-has been scheduled for Sat., Aug. 26, 10:30 AM at THE STORY NOOK in Jamestown, ND (109 First St. West). Every Saturday at 10:30 AM, Story Nook owner Emily Steele hosts Reading Time. We'll not only be reading Ozzy Ox: Candy Stash, but Illustrator Emily Hagen will be there too! We'll bring a few of her real life illustrations along so that she can show a little about the wonderful process that she uses to bring Ozzy books into living color! Emily and I will be all set to sign any Ozzy books already out there--and we'll have plenty of copies at the store for you to purchase as well. So set your calendar for Sat.. Aug 26, 10:30 AM at The Story Nook. -- just west of Babb's Coffee Shop, or east of Gun and Reel!

I didn’t go to kindergarten. Back in the 1800s (and also in the 1960s!), public kindergarten wasn’t a thing in North Dakota. Thank goodness, that has changed. My grandson, Eddie, turns six tomorrow. Like most kids his age, he attends full-time kindergarten and is reading like second-graders used to “Grandma, I started reading chapter books!,” he proudly announced recently. While authors like me see NOTHING wrong with sticking with pictures books long after age six, there is a whole lot of stats out there imploring families to sit down with their kids and read—as soon as they are born. By age two, a child’s brain is as active as an adult’s. By age three, the brain is more than TWICE as active as an adult’s—and stays that way for the first 10 years of life. By age 3, roughly 85 percent of the brain is developed. What should families do to nurture that development? READ TO THEM! SHOW THEM THAT READING IS FUN! According to a study from Ohio State University, one-fourth of children in a national sample are never read to, and another one-fourth of children are seldom read to. The same study found that children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 MILLION more words than kids who were weren’t read to. Based on their calculations, here is how many words kids would have heard by the time they were five years old: Never read to: 4,662 words; 1-2 times per week: 63,570 words; 3-5 times per week: 169,520 words; 7 times per week (daily): 296,660 words Five books a day: 1,483,300 words. Keep in mind where that million-word vocabulary will take a child: —A better childhood: A study found that when children know more words, they have an easier time paying attention and be more engaged in school, have better relationships with teachers, socialize more easily and receive more positive feedback from their peers. —A better adulthood: A study indicates that early reading levels in first grade as well as the trajectory of reading development through the first five years of school were associated with reading scores in adulthood. In 2024, 21 percent of US adults are illiterate. Would that be the case if every child was read to beginning at birth? You’ve heard it before, but now, more than ever—READ to and with the children in your life!

I used to think that entering old age was like shifting down a gravel truck. You’d be roaring down a smooth asphalt road, when all of a sudden, you’d hit a rut and spin out on gravel--frantically hitting the clutch and brakes as you struggled to keep all four wheels grounded. I am old now, and so far, haven’t met that fate. Gratefully, I didn’t wake up one day feeling like my thought processes had been hijacked and replaced with a fog that never quite lifted. A person who didn’t have an opinion or the curiosity to seek truth. A being who had checked out of life because relevance and technology left them behind. I am pretty sure my younger self perceived old age like that. Obviously, I have changed my mind—and you will too, someday. In the meantime, I have a feeling that old age is the last social profile that hasn’t been added to the "socially unjust" index. As much as I see the danger in sorting every human being into demographic silos, I am a little surprised that the typical grandparent stereotype--that of an old codger impeding traffic or using a 20-year-old flip phone held together by rubber bands--survives in the age of inclusivity. It's time that bias goes the way of dial-up modems. So, let me start right here. I am a PROUD grandmother that knows how to use technology as well as anybody. Stop with those ads that say, "If you are over 55, you have a special need for our [dumbed down] tablet that has big letters." Stop with the assumption that anyone over age 55 can't walk into a Verizon store and understand the 21-year-old tech that talks to you like you're in kindergarten. Stow that smug grin that smacks of condescension and the "you can't possibly grasp what I am talking about." But, most of all, stop calling me "Grandma"--unless you are one of nine VERY SPECIAL people that qualify. Don't get me wrong: I am in LOVE with being a grandma--what a privilege it is! I sometimes tease my own kids that if I had known how great it is to have grandchildren, I more than likely would have just skipped the parenthood thing! But my grandmother role is reserved for MY GRANDCHILDREN only! If you aren’t one of those nine special people—don’t you DARE call me grandma! I am not your grandma and (sorry, not sorry!) I am offended by how disparagingly the term is used. To mock, to insult, to degrade. To turn a living, breathing individual into a Hollywood punchline. How did matriarchs and patriarchs become so disrespected in our culture, anyway? Is it not bizarre that we fiercely protect other social identities from stereotypes, yet we don't raise an eyebrow to outright prejudice against the aged? Why is it ok to make a mockery out of a person whose knowledge and life experiences should be revered, to be consulted and used to guide future generations? I know that other cultures--indigenous and Eastern come to mind--view their elders as keepers of wisdom. We have lost that compass. There is so much more to the elderly, whether they are grandparents or not. I hope for the day when it is just as taboo to mock an elderly woman by calling her "an old grandma" as it is to target any other group with the disgusting, historic monikers we have rightfully banned from civil society. Too bad we can't just drive a gravel truck over all of it.

Twenty-five years ago tonight, my husband, our three kids, and I went to bed in tears. Our Chocolate Lab Otis—still centered in our hearts as the most beloved dog to ever pace the earth—died that day. Reflecting on the memory of Otis, I can still feel all 141 pounds of him cozying up against me while I worked at my computer. I can still remember how he could read my heart. He’d cuddle when I was sad and playfully attack when he greeted me with a drooling mouth and wiggly tail each day after work. What a welcome home—one I counted on each day, never realizing what a gift it truly was. My husband was probably hit hardest by Otis’s death. It was hunting season, and Otis died doing what he loved best. But, as stoic as Oren had always been, he ended that day sobbing, too. He was mourning the good times—those days in his old field pickup when Otis would sit straight up in the middle seat, huddled so tightly to him that he had to drive with his left hand. “Oren, I saw you driving west with the Brunette beside you!” Yes, I have brown hair, but it wasn’t me the neighbors referred to. “The Brunette” was beloved by more than just our immediate family. He was iconic—the kind of dog, with his huge frame and oversized head, that started conversations. He once scared a visitor who drove into our farmyard in a small car; she actually thought he was a bear! That entire week seems surreal now, 25 years later. Our oldest son had come home on leave from the US Air Force. He had completed pilot training just five days prior and would soon go off to his first assignment as a military pilot. He loved Otis, too, and went to bed just as heartbroken as the rest of us. You can imagine our anguish when the next day dawned and planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Suddenly, losing a dog seemed quite tolerable. It was seeing your son off to fly a military plane in a spiraling world that quieted the cherished memories of Otis, replacing them with pure angst. All of this surfaced again last week when our pilot son, now a colonel, “tapped out” his own son—our grandson—at his graduation from Air Force Basic Training. Holding back tears, my mind flashed back to the day Jerrad had to leave us for his first assignment as a pilot. I sat on the porch in the early morning darkness and watched his taillights until they were no longer visible. I knew in my heart that he would be deployed to the Middle East in a matter of weeks, if not days. Terrified, I wondered where terrorism would take this world—and my son. A parent never lets go of the fear that a child will meet misfortune. I knew that long before those taillights disappeared into the early morning horizon so long ago. And now, I have taken on the same role as a grandparent. Is Nolan's commitment to serve his country worth it? Do we as a country deserve his dutiful pledge-and that of all service men and women? I often wonder if most people even realize the scope of that commitment, especially now. Before 9/11, the term “terrorism” wasn’t even in our everyday vernacular. When Jerrad first started at age 17 with Air Force Basic Training in Colorado Springs, there were no major wars that we knew of. Terrorism was a back-burner issue happening on the far sides of the earth. Now, we are not even sure where the next crisis will erupt, who the enemy even is, or how the fight will be fought. If something as horrific as 9/11 has a silver lining, it is this: Beginning that very day, America came together. It didn’t matter whether you were black or white, red or yellow. Whether you were left or right, Republican or Democrat, rural or urban, white or blue-collar. We held hands and sang “God Bless America.” We flew our flags and burst with pride during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. Somehow, our love of country has been sidetracked. That concerns people like me, the ones who have family members in uniform. To listen to the mainstream and social media, about half the US population supports little of what the country does internationally or domestically. So many look patriotism in the eye as though it was a four-letter word. Some of the bigger egos have moved to another country, while many others threaten to, or pretend they wish to. Yet, according to the Gallup Poll, an estimated 134 million adults—up to 700 MILLION when their children are included—would move to the United States TOMORROW if they could. How those two facts square is beyond my meager understanding. Twenty-five years ago tonight, we would have never believed that the next day would deliver terrorism to our front door. We were adrift in the tragedy of losing a dog so dear to us that the thought of him brings back tears to this day. Yet, how small those feelings are compared to the magnitude of 9/11! That’s the thing about good times. You don’t know it when you are living through them. You only look back and realize how blessed you were. Having a normal week day, with a good 'ole dog to greet you after work, and a sure footing in a country so loved by its citizens--that was life before 9/11. Love of country. Appreciation for our blessings and the men and women who stand up to protect us: I pray that it will be a reality again tomorrow, next month and next year. And after the next quarter-century. And forever. God Bless America!

It is good to be back to this blog! I know blogging needs far more consistency than what I have offered. No excuses are better than bad excuses, so I will save you an explanation. I still find immense delight in hearing from children who read Ozzy Ox. That's the greatest reward and I want to thank all who have introduced the lovable Ozzy to their children. He is out there on Amazon and in bookstores. So if you haven't met Ozzy, please do so! I hope to someday add onto the Ozzy Ox series and have a few more ideas for the rascally lad. For now, though, I have switched lanes and am writing a historical fiction novel. Set in Minnesota and North Dakota, it begins when a train hits a granite-hard snowbank during the first day of the Blizzard of March 1966. The train is stranded with 29 passengers for three days. That really happened and I am humbled to learn that some of the heroes of that saga are parents of folks I have either met or already know! That is only the beginning, though. The book features dual plot lines that qualify it as a historical drama. It goes on to feature settings in a Minnesota unwed mothers' home and the glamorous Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. If you have never visited Summit Avenue, you may want to check it out, as it is, to this day, the longest preserved stretch of Victorian-era residential architecture in the United States! During the peak of the Gilded Age (1870 to 1900) 440 mansions were built on 4.5 miles of Summit Avenue. Today, 373 of those homes are still standing. My book features both an unwed mothers' home in that neighborhood and a wealthy heiress who lives in the largest turn-of-the-century mansion on that famous street. Every book needs a villain, right? Other settings include Valley City in the blizzard aftermath, a legacy ranch in western North Dakota and a North Dakota Indian reservation. Although my characters are fictional, their experiences are not. I have spent an inordinate amount of time studying the 1966 March Blizzard and its aftermath. I have read more documents, papers, articles and books about unwed mothers' homes and Indian boarding schools than I can count--and feel that what I have learned has greatly enriched my understanding of the injustice, the sheer brutality, heaped on the vulnerable in mid-century America. I still cannot believe how the timelines of the era took place on not only rich mid-century settings, but unbelievably consequential social policies that almost begged to be correlated. As a North Dakotan, I think we are all aware of Indian boarding schools. But how many of us know what followed them? After learning in-depth about the experiences of generations of Native Americans and the unwed mothers of past decades, I couldn't look away without at least an attempt to shine a light on these travesties. I prefer not to self-publish this book, and in that vein, am traveling later this summer to New York City, where my writing samples and outline has earned me a place at a writer's conference. In order to traditionally publish a novel, an author must find an agent. The chances of that happening (unless you are a celebrity) are .01 percent. Who is dense enough to accept those odds? Only a dreamer like me! Yes, I have to be realistic enough to believe I won't actually secure an agent with this book by simply showing up in New York. But I am confident that I will have learned from this experience about traditional publishing. That is my realistic goal--to learn something I wouldn't have otherwise! I self-published Ozzy Ox with an endless learning curve, and now I find, once again, that I have a lot to learn. To be honest, I will consider the whole thing successful if I avoid falling into a NYC manhole. And if the conference turns out to be a dud, I will still have gotten to visit NYC with dear friends and my lovely granddaughter--who, I expect, will keep me from falling in that manhole. Right, Emersyn? I want all of us to "be a part of it...New York, New York!" Please wish me luck!

It began as a fundraiser. An effort by a couple dozen people to help a family who is stricken with grief after losing a patriarch and its oldest son — all within a matter of months. But it ended up being more than that. Sure, it raised significant money - at least two or three times what we envisioned. But our benefit the other night raised more than money. As one local rancher said to me, “This has become about more than just money. Look how people have come together.” Yes, they — people from Aberdeen to Jamestown to Buchanan to Pingree to Carrington — certainly did come together! The KC Hall has seldom been filled to such capacity. Generosity lined the outside walls of the main hall via baskets and baskets designed with artists’ hands. Items that appealed to men, women and children with every kind of taste. Tools and equipment for any shop or garage. Home decor for any style. Toys, books and blankets for kids. Platters beautifully stacked with cookies (thanks, Chris Neys!) so festive they brought a sugar rush (and fetched up to $200 a plate!). That was the Silent Auction. The LIVE Auction could be a story in itself. A posse of professionals couldn’t have done a better job of gathering donations -- and those they targeted could simply not have been more generous. Donations to the LIVE auction were something to behold: gift certificates that offered services as diverse as fertilizer spreading for 1,000 acres to Minnesota and North Dakota vacation packages, to quarter beefs, to 20 bags of bean seeds to 10 emsella treatments and one Party Bus. Two 7’ Christmas trees decorated with pull tabs. Heavy duty stuff, too—a snow blower, a Bobcat generator, grills, televisions, e-bikes, even Sioux hockey tickets and a Brett Favre jersey! As impressive as those donations are, they weren’t magical until bidders bravely bid. As hard as we worked to reflect a real retail value of all items on both the silent and LIVE auctions, bidders often didn’t meet those values—they often SURPASSED them. As awe-inspiring as the bids for the big-buck items were, the darlings of the ball were lefsa by the dozen and porch pots times ten. It tickled me that all of Susan Fredrickson’s festive evergreen porch pots, which she humbly thought should bring $20 to $30 apiece, actually sold for $175 each. And I loved that Roger Nenow was able to auction off lefsa made by Wendall and Judy Perleberg. Bags containing a dozen lefsa each sold for $150, and when the Perlebergs said they would take orders for more at that price (also to be donated), bidders complied. Cookies, porch pots and lefsa. These weren't just donations, they were labors of love. The Stutsman County version of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Given — as ALL donations to the benefit were — with deference for a family that has experienced unthinkable tragedy. If there has ever been a time that has caused me to swell with pride in my community, it is this. Right here. Right now. The people of our community needed this. We needed to lift up the Neys Family. Because, in doing so, we lifted ourselves. “The more you help people find their light, the brighter you both will shine.”

It doesn’t take research results to confirm what we all know about Christmas:  women do all the work.  Well, not all.  But most.  According to a 2023 study by the American Psychological Association, twice as many women as men do the holiday shopping, cooking, decorating and other “ings". When I look back over my own past Christmases, I admit it.  I was a nut.  Whatever compelled me to cover every surface of our house — inside and out - with Christmas trees and villages, lighted garland, angels, Santas and at least 1,000 snowmen should really be studied.  Why I felt Christmas wasn’t magical unless our children smeared green or red frosting over ten dozen cut-out sugar cookies and ten feet of the kitchen counter with their ten grubby fingers is a puzzle.  Would our three children have lived through Christmas without pretending they actually knew what they were giving the bus drivers, teachers, coaches, grandparents, godparents, mail man, friends and family members in those shiny, ribboned packages?  Would they be more balanced adults if they wouldn’t have been forced to look happy in their matching sweaters (or neon-colored coordinating ski jackets!) as they endured another of my hours-long photo shoots for the annual Christmas card? Would our kids not have felt the divine grace of Christmas if we hadn't attended Midnight Mass and then, five hours later, all gotten up to see if Santa came? The thing is, I don’t know where this obsession to have a Hallmark Christmas came from.  I have never been a fan of sappy Christmas movies set in Thomas Kinkade villages. I can’t blame my pursuit of holiday bliss on Pinterest or Google images, because technology was still in incubation back then.  So why did I stay up until 2 AM making molded chocolate lollipops for a second-grade class that night in 1988 when my only company was a radio broadcast telling me a bomb blasted a plane out of the sky, killing a planeload of passengers over Lockerbie, Scotland?  Yeah, the things we remember are inexplicable! And that is my fear — that my kids remember more stress than magic at Christmas. That my husband will someday bury me thinking, “Well, Christmas is going to be a lot easier now.” That the family will gather at Christmas and say, “Gosh, I don’t remember Christmas ever being this relaxing!”  And there is my life lesson—the one bit of advice my older self would say to younger me:  Keep it simple. Don't go it alone. Moms, although each generation makes progress balancing the load, it is still your shoulders that carry the weight of the holidays.  It is you that will define what Christmas means to your children and maybe even your grandchildren.  It won’t be the holiday baking, shopping or hot Pinterest trend that will stay with them long after the holidays.  It won’t be Elf on the Shelf or the flashy gift of the season that they unwrap on Christmas morning that will live on in their memories. It will be you - your example, your decisions, your relationships, your reactions, your patience, your happiness, your leadership, your love of self - that will define their Christmases. Don’t discount that.  Realize that there are only so many hours in a day--and that some of those hours MUST involve sleep! In most households, Moms make Christmas, so take care of yourself. Keep yourself whole — and stop the imposition that previous generations of we women have brought upon ourselves .  I know, I know. The very story of Christmas doesn't exactly inspire us to place moms first. After all, even though Mary gave Jesus life, divine grace was bestowed on her only through her Son. I think most of us mothers think of our offspring in the same light. We adore them, we put ourselves and our very sense of being behind them. We realize our happiness through theirs. It's what mothers do--especially at Christmas. But that doesn't mean we should discount the importance of teaching our kids to recognize all that role entails. And it doesn't mean we mothers should go it alone. Mary's example teaches us to take one for the team. It doesn't mean we can't have teammates! If we are ever going to lighten the load of women at Christmas, we must embrace that need for change, and then take the first steps. So, instead of being both the coach and the entire roster, do some serious recruiting. Call your team together. Enlist your special someone and children to share decorating, baking, shopping and wrapping — and don’t worry if your gift selections aren't always even close to the ultimate dream. Or that the paper doesn’t quite cover the package, or the lights on the tree favor only one side. Bake that family heirloom treat together, but let your children go to work in the kitchen. You'd be surprised what an 8-year-old can accomplish with a cookie mix and your blessing! So your kitchen looks like a scene from " Mr. Mom !" Don't sweat it--enlist your team to clean up after themselves! Dads can bake too, so let them manage the banana bread -- and don't apologize if the Hershey Kiss cookies seem a little dry. Buy the rest of the holiday treats, and simplify, post online, or even skip, the Christmas cards.  Cut down on your shopping time with gift cards — or ask your family to reach out to those you typically gift and instead offer to take them to a movie or out for ice cream--anything that you can all enjoy. Don't let everyday routines interfere with the spirit of the season. Peanut butter sandwiches deserve respect, too. Your family won’t die if that's what's for supper all too often during December.  Rachel Ray won't haunt your house if dinners occasionally come compliments of frozen Marie Callender's. Weekday suppers don't have to be memorable when there is so much to celebrate. So streamline December meals and free up your time to cherish those you love. Start by making a Christmas date with your main squeeze first, and then with each of your children, one-on-one. Take them to a church play or concert.  Visit Santa.  Shop from an Angel Tree.  Dress up like Dickens characters and scare the neighbors with Christmas carols. Visit the library or bookstore and read The Christmas Story .  See the holiday lights of your town. Take holiday treats to a shut-in . Volunteer dad to join the kids to ring the bell. Take your kids to a nursing home. Hand out treats (nutritious!) at a daycare. Show your children that compassion for others, even those you don't know personally, matters most. Don't have the time? Make your date an hour-long if you have to! Or scrap something that takes your time. House cleaning? Extra-curriculars? Church responsibilities? Split those obligations up among your team. Brain storm ways you can all become more efficient. And throughout, don't underserve yourself! Mom's deserve a place in every Christmas story - and not just as the workhorse. Show each of your children that you deserve to ENJOY the spirit of the season, too. Give them ideas of gifts that YOU would like to receive (and THEY can afford!). No, that’s not selfish! It is showing them that thoughtfulness is a two-way street. Instill in your family that nobody should single-handedly make the magic of Christmas.  That the miracle of Christmas is for all of us to create—and enjoy together. I would be lying if I said I believed this adage from Robert Redford: “I have no regrets, because I’ve done everything I could to the best of my ability.”  Sure, I DO think I decorated and baked and shopped and gifted to the best of my ability.  But that’s little comfort to me, because I regret the Christmas stress I caused my children during those frenzied growing-up years. Although there are likely certain components of Christmas they treasure (for some reason, they love the red ceramic boot I [of course] hand crafted), the fact is I don’t really know what Christmas memories they favor.  I hope it isn’t hauling in more than two dozen 50-gallon Rubbermaid tubs of Christmas decorations.  Brother.  What WAS I thinking?

So! As promised, today we are going to reveal the WINNER of our "Toys Have Feeling, Too!", the original canvas by Illustrator Emily Hagen that is featured in our Ozzy Ox: Toy Trauma children's rhyming picture book. We will be posting a video showing our own social media stars, Isaac and Nolan Krapp (who have 3.2 MILLION followers on Tiktok !), revealing the lucky winner! These two quirky guys (see them interviewed by Beyond the Spotlight Podcast here) are my grandsons and they are just as charismatic as they seem to be on this video! So visit callenkropp.com today AT 5 PM to see them reveal the LUCKY winner!

We are used to hearing about Black Friday crazy — the middle-of-the-night long lines that broke into brawls when big box stores opened their doors. I remember my sweet, demure sister-in-law on a Black Friday a few decades ago. She wasn’t all that into shopping — and particularly wasn’t a Black Friday cuckoo like many of us.  Little did she know she’d be getting into a riot the day she decided her daughter’s Christmas wouldn’t be whole without a Cabbage Patch doll. So on Black Friday, she got up in the wee hours, trekked 20 miles into town, and was successful!  She got her hands on a coveted Cabbage Patch named Owen.  Yes.  Mission accomplished.  Life was good.  Until someone had the audacity to try snatching Owen out of her shopping cart.  Dione is small but she is mighty.  Suffice it to say, the thief didn’t get away with it. Retailers actually call those days the Cabbage Patch Riot of 1983. I would say it was the day that Thanksgiving went from a four-day weekend to a single day of gratefulness.  With great deals on all your dreams, who has time to sit around being grateful?  For a couple decades, we got used to hearing about mobs fighting it out for Tickle Me Elmos (1996), Furbys and Beanie Babies (1998).  TVs and electronics which were likely loss leaders were also in play. Remember the 2010 Target stampede in Buffalo, New York?  A man was trampled after he lost his balance when, at 4AM, the store opened. In 2011 in Los Angeles, a woman pepper-sprayed the competition to get at a video game console.  That was the same year a man collapsed in a Target store in South Charleston, West Virginia.  Shoppers were so intent on their pursuits that they ignored him until some sympathetic nurse came to his rescue.  But in 2008, when a Long Island, NY opened, the crowd broke down the doors.  A 34-year-old employee was trampled to death.   According to Website Black Friday Death Count, 11 people have died and 108 have been injured by Black Friday violence. While there are still traces of that kind of violence associated with this day, the advent of online shopping — and promotions that begin the day after Halloween — have changed how America responds to Black Friday. So, too has Shop Local Saturday, AKA Small Business Saturday , which was started by retailers in 2010 by American Express.  I like the idea — and believe that a little online shopping on Black Friday, coupled with a lot of shopping on Small Business Saturday, represents a kinder, more gracious approach that may not even risk your life or safety. On this Small Business Saturday, r emember you can score a deal right on callenkropp.com !  Go to my callenkropp.com/contact  page and sign up for the original canvas by talented Illustrator Emily Hagen from Ozzy Ox:  Toy Trauma.   It is a beautiful but gentle reminder to kids to pick up their toys. No purchase required—and it’s quick and easy to enter.  The drawing will be held tomorrow (Sat, Nov 30) and the winner will be announced by the end of December 1.  No purchase required. But, if you have kids on your shopping list, treat them to a set of Ozzy Ox books on Small Business Saturday! You can get them at The Melted Crayon and The Story Nook in Jamestown, or Words To Live By Bookstore in Moorhead and First Avenue Market in Fargo. I promise: you won’t even have to wear body armor!

We have a friend fighting for his life in a nearby Intensive Care Unit.  I cannot believe what he and his family members are going through, and the strength with which they go through it.  The other day, as we walked out of his hospital room toward the elevator, I wanted to lose it.  This family unexpectedly lost its oldest son in February.  That this mother is going through another tragedy is beyond crushing.  It is gripping.  Ripping.  The stuff of a heart-wrenching novel-turned-movie-script only real on Hallmark Channel.  A person feels so helpless, even guilty, in such situations.  But just as I was about to give in to emotion, we encountered a woman, possibly in her late 20s or early 30s, getting on the elevator and crying hysterically.  We asked what was wrong.  She replied, “My baby is going to die!  He’s going to die! They said he is brain dead!” I don't know why, but I asked her, “How old is your baby?”  Between sobs, she gasped, “Five. He’s only five years old.”  My heart didn’t just drop. It plummeted.  We have a grandson that just turned six. Those tears I had tried to contain now washed down my cheeks. Oren asked if there was anything at all we could do for her.  She said, “Pray.  Pray for my baby.”  We walked with her out of the elevator and all the way to the front door. I felt at times like she was going to collapse.  I asked her if she wanted a ride somewhere.  She said, “Someone is coming and I don’t know what I’ll do.  What will I do?” I am a loser in such situations.  I would have given her a ride to Minneapolis if she’d have asked for it, but she didn’t.  She said someone was coming for her.  I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t know what to do.  But when we drove away from that hospital, I thought about all the life stories playing out in there.  One hospital in one city in one state in one country—among what, thousands? I don’t know why, but I looked it up.  There are 6,120 hospitals and 917,000 hospital beds in the United States. They are not just buildings separated by rooms holding mattresses with sheets and pillowcases. They are life stories playing out—lives beginning, lives healing, lives ending. Miracles and tragedies.  Lives changing and families searching, praying, begging, rejoicing. Of course, structures and beds are the least of it all.  It is healthcare workers, 22 million in the US, that guide these life stories.  My hat is off to them.  I don’t know how they do it.  How do they help people going through such hardship?  How do they manage to live their own lives knowing their hearts have to skip a beat each time they return to work and face the challenges that come with cheering patients and families on through some of the hardest times of their lives? I am thinking they are better than me.  That they know what to say and what to do.  That they have a direct line to God, and HE is at the helm. And through Him, they know how to project hope—and also how to deliver it. This Thanksgiving, I am praying for the 917,000 lives being treated, guided, saved, lost and found in those 6,120 hospitals. I am giving thanks for each and every one of those 22 million healthcare workers, for it is because of them that they - and we - can have hope. That we can believe in miracles for our friend and the young mother in the elevator.  For patients everywhere, in all those hospitals and in all those beds, this Thanksgiving and beyond: My prayer is that dawn will come. Happy Thanksgiving.

I think we are all familiar with the book mobile — basically a library on wheels.  But how many of us ever heard of a library on a packhorse?  I just finished reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson.  It tells the story of a “book woman,” one of the packhorse librarians who delivered books to remote, craggy areas of the Appalachian Mountains during the Depression on her trusty mule.  It is a story that reminds us how incredibly blessed we are to have access to books!   Online, in our libraries and bookstores, and even, for some, via the bookmobile—we are blessed to be surrounded by books if we choose to be. In “The Book Woman,” the people of Appalachia both embraced and rejected the packhorse librarians, who were likely chosen for not only a love of the written world, but also a passion - and determination - to share.  They fought weather and remote, treacherous terrain to ride up to 120 miles a week to deliver to people living deep in the backwoods of eastern Kentucky, desperate for reading material.  They sometimes encountered steep mountain paths where their horses and mules struggled to stay upright.  In some areas, they had to splash along riverbeds and iced-over creeks because there were no roads.  While most families embraced the librarians, some initially resisted them out of suspicion of outsiders.  In the “Bookwoman,” which is a fictionalized story based on real life events, the main character faced sexual harassment and abuse at the hands of backwoods predators.  But the program, established in 1935 by the New Deal’s Work Progress Administration, persevered.  Imagine the reaction of children to a pack course librarian as they envisioned what she had packed in her saddlebag for them!  Text books, recipes and quilt patterns were circulated among the mountain families, too. In 1936, packhorse librarians served 50,000 families and, by 1937, 155 schools.   Books and magazines for the packhorse library were acquired largely from donations; great pains were taken to preserve them.  When they became too worn, librarians pasted the text and images from the worn books into binders.  Many of the families served had never checked out a book before the Pack Horse Library program.  In 1935, Kentucky’s circulation book per capita was just one—only a fraction of the American Library Association standard back then of five to ten.  Some 30 percent of Eastern Kentuckians were illiterate in 1930. The Pack Horse Library - which employed nearly 1,000 riding librarians in total, ended in 1943 after Franklin Roosevelt ordered the end of the WPA.  Bookmobiles weren’t introduced in the area until the 1950s.  Imagine the families of Appalachia once the brave Packhorse Librarians no longer served them.  Imagine yourself with no access to books!  So celebrate your local library!  And come to the Alfred Dickey Library  in Jamestown this Saturday, Nov. 16 from 12-3 pm.  Ozzy Ox and I will be there for its first-ever Local Author Fair!