A month ago, everyone I knew was elated about the presidential campaign. Now everyone I know just wants it to go away.

Barack has acquired a barnacle called Rev. Wright. Rev. Wright reminds me of Billy Carter (anyone remember Billy?), who climbed out of a beer bottle to become a constant embarrassment to Brother Jimmy, the big difference being that Jimmy already had been elected President, and Barack hasn’t. Poor Barack.

Hillary, a product of Yale Law School, wants us to think she chews Red Man and drives a semi.

And Straight-Talking John has flip-flopped like a beached tuna. By now he has succeeded in renouncing every position he ever held, putting even John Kerry to shame.

It is to barf.

But I come to bury these Caesars, not to praise them. Let’s start with the Democratic Party.

Howard Dean sent an email the other day asking me to take a look at his new straight-talking commercial that nails John McCain for saying we’ll stay in Iraq “100 years.” ‘We’ve got him on tape! Look! Look!’ Howard screamed, jumping up and down and puffing out his cheeks. Instead, I went to YouTube and watched the entire 6+-minute town hall meeting.

I saw a McCain who was giving a rather reasoned disquisition on how the U.S. always maintains troops for decades in places where it has fought, like Korea and Bosnia, and say Iraq would be no different. He did say “100 years” (bet HE’s sorry), but he also added a big “if,” which is that we’d be likely to stay in Iraq only as long as U.S. troops weren’t being killed.

So much for honesty on the part of the Democratic Party. Now let’s talk about one of its candidates, Poor Barack.

Poor Barack’s message of hope is being drowned by the guy he once (rather recently) compared to a beloved but crazy old uncle. (All right, Poor Barack didn’t use the word “crazy,” but we got the point.) Rev. Wright is crazy all right — crazy about himself. I was ready to feel some sympathy for a guy whose lifetime reputation gets trashed in about 90 minutes of presidential campaigning, but Rev. Wright has worn out his welcome. In this coming-out tour of his, it’s been all about The Rev.

Before he appeared at the Press Club, I wasn’t convinced Wright was a bad guy. After all, I recently wrote that he was merely expounding liberation theology, and that us whites ought not to be so naive because this stuff has been around a long time. Again though I went to YouTube, this time to view 6+ unedited minutes of one of Wright’s most inflammatory sermons.

I’m big on context and fairness, and I can truly say that in those 6+ minutes of context, Wright discredited himself. He told about a half a dozen lies and at least as many half-truths. He also displayed a most un-Christian demeanor, using the very kind of invective he accuses his enemies of using. Then he went before the Press Club audience and basically took Poor Barack down, saying our boy must say what he says because he’s just a politician. Ouch, Rev.

This couldn’t be worse for Poor Barack. Follow me here. Barack is trying to be the un-Jesse Jackson, the candidate who will transcend race and get us beyond the legacy of the Civil War that still cripples us Americans, black and white alike. But Barack attended The Rev’s church while The Rev was The Rev there, and Barack did so for years. The Rev conducted Barack’s marriage and baptized his kids. Barack says he never heard The Rev on one of his racist stemwinders but, after watching the YouTube video, I’m finding that harder to swallow.

If Barack is telling the truth, then he’s either naive or stupid — and we know he is neither of those things. And if Barack is lying, well … he’s lying — about pretty serious stuff — and looking more like what The Rev says he is: just another politician.

(Full disclosure: I really like Poor Barack. I think his call to cast off our 150-year-old racial millstone is just what America needs, and I’ve said so numerous times in numerous ways, in this space and elsewhere. I don’t think he really is “just another politician.” But if he starts looking like one to enough voters, it doesn’t matter what he “really” is.)

Another guy I really like — or anyway used to like — is Straight-Talking John. I am a sucker for straight talk, for one thing, and this guy sure has delivered it — for example, getting up in front of nativist audiences and talking about opening doors to Mexican immigrants, for God’s sake. He had a devil-may-care insouciance; he almost seemed to embrace self-immolation. For perverse observers of the political scene like myself, that’s very attractive. Sure, as a registered Democrat and proud liberal, I disliked many many of S-T John’s positions, but I thought he had the character and temperament to make a fine president. (Something I also thought, and still think, that Obama has. We’ll get to Hillary in a moment.)

But now John, who once blasted broad-scale tax-cutting as irresponsible, wants to extend the Bush tax cuts into forever. Now fiscally conservative John is now calling for a gas tax holiday this summer. (Great idea, John — that ought to dampen consumption nicely and drive crude prices back below $20 by, oh, Aug. 20, max.) John has a health plan that isn’t a plan at all, and the temerity to go into Appalachia and the Ninth Ward and tell those sad sacks that he doesn’t really think the federal government is the right body to do anything for them. (Unless you count the gas-tax holiday.) John! John! Straight-Talking John! We miss you, man!

Finally, there’s Hillary. I mean honestly, what’s to like? And voters really don’t like her. She wins Pennsylvania and her negative poll ratings go UP. How does she do that? Actually, I think I know. She lies about sniper fire in Bosnia to make herself look tough; she says illegal aliens (a) should (b) shouldn’t be given driver’s licenses; she claims the votes of two states (Michigan and Florida) that didn’t conduct legitimate primaries; she flip-flops on NAFTA, which could not have happened without the Clinton Administration’s massive support. Why, she even sides on a gas tax holiday with John the Economic Genius.

And then there’s Bill the Ineffable. Bill’s out there undercutting Poor Barack with the seamiest sort of racial manipulation, then pretending butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. These people want us to hand them the Red Phone for four, make that eight, years? It is, as I said, to barf.

It’s working, sorta. They’re tearing down Poor Barack (although failing to build up Big Bad Hil), and her argument gains traction that she deserves the nomination because she wins in the big Democratic states. Meantime John the Forked-Tongued seems to be trying to piss away this windfall, this gift the Democrats are trying to give him, by climbing into bed with W., the most hated president since … lemme see … Andrew Johnson?

And finally … this all may pass. Really, it may. Poor Barack still has the popular majority of primary votes in his pocket. He still occasionally remembers to remind us that all this back-and-forth is B.S., and to keep our eye on the ball — the economy and the war and health care. He probably wins the nomination; I make it 6:5 (any takers?). Hillary probably bites her lip and campaigns for Barack. Bill too, maybe. Then in the actual campaign, maybe John tries to Swift-Boat Barack and maybe it works. (It should be easy. Between Bill and Rev. Wright, the manual already is written.) Or maybe John nominates Cheney for vice president and starts wearing George Bush’s old clothes, and it doesn’t. Except for the Cheney part, John’s almost there already.

I don’t know. After the Democratic convention, my crystal ball grows cloudy. All I do know is, I wish I could stop paying attention. Too bad I can’t.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. This coming weekend, you can support our great Montgomery County MD library system at absolutely no cost, by buying ANYTHING (except memberships and gift cards) at ANY Barnes & Noble, ANYwhere in the world. Really — any THING any WHERE, not just in Montgomery County. Just give the cashier the following “Bookfair ID”: 238774. Write down that Bookfair ID number now. Then hie thee to the nearest Barnes & Noble this Friday-Saturday-Sunday and shop shop shop, hear?

The kids had finally succeeded in pissing me off.

It was the fourth day of my five-day stint as Writer in Residence at Thurgood Marshall Middle School on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Each of my four classes had been wonderful except this one — yet just the day before, these kids had turned wonderful too.

Now on Day 4, though, they were worse than ever — talking to each other, not paying attention. One girl in particular liked to throw me off with a running commentary under her breath; yet I could tell she was excited and motivated. I figured she’d been class clown so long she couldn’t stop now even if she wanted to. But on Day 3 she’d proven me wrong by becoming my most enthusiastic participant … and proven me right about being excited.

Now it’s Day 4 though and Day 3 might as well not have happened. They’re chattering away. I try to discuss the assigned story and they haven’t read it. Oops, there goes 20 minutes and what to do now? “Could we write our final paper instead?” someone asks. I grab as if for a life preserver. “OK, write for 10 minutes.” What do they do? Chatterchatterchatter.

I’ve been had. I’m pissed and I’m afraid I show it. “I’ve been trying to treat you like adults,” I say. “I think that’s a new experience. All your lives you’ve been graded and corrected and told what to do, and now here’s someone trying to treat you like a colleague, a fellow writer. I have no power over you: I can’t give you a grade, I can’t send you to the principal. But if I’m not mistaken, you asked to be in this class. You want to learn what I’m trying to teach. Well, you are only going to get out of this class what you put into it. You can only learn how to analyze the story if you read the story. You can only learn to write by writing.”

They’re quiet during my tirade. Then I ask them to start writing and they pull out their pads and pens, bend their little heads and write in silence for 10 minutes. Wow, I think. So this is what it’s like to be a teacher.

Actually, my inner teacher has been coming out a little more each day. I slow down, explain more, spell out, define words I’d been sure (on Day 1) they’d understand. Around Day 2.5 I begin getting very directive: Get out your pads, put your pads away, start writing, stop writing, stand up, sit down. I’d been warned that kids won’t want to speak, won’t want to volunteer, and I quickly discover how true that is. But …

… around Day 2 or 3, one girl asks to read what she’s written to the class. Then another. Then a third. I have the presence of mind not to utter a word of critique: Instead I lead a round of applause for each reader.

… I’ve prepared about 60 “hooks” — first lines of potential stories. Example: “Sunny said he had to return the U-Haul by six o’clock or pay for another day so there we sat, staring at everything we owned piled up in the middle of the floor …” I cut these up and put the slips into my white straw hat. Every day I pass the Magic Hat and have the kids spend five minutes completing the story. I make the rules tougher each day, and on Day 4 I announce they’ll write for twice as long — 10 minutes, not 5. Afterward, almost all say longer is better. More time to think, more time to get into our stories, they say. So on Day 5, I have them write for 20 minutes … and, glory be, they like that best of all.

… At the end, one of the girls has written 7+ chapters of a novel. Another girl, who asked for critique on Day 3, hands me a complete rewrite on Day 5 that is a far stronger piece.

This was a tough week. On my 30-minute break between Class #2 and Class #3 the first day, I just sat and stared into space, too pooped even to read the newspaper. After Class #4, my armpits were soaked.

The classes were a mix — some kids already writers, some writer wannabes, some with learning disabilities, a few in bilingual education. Something like 90% were Latinos, and 92% were classified as in poverty.

I didn’t learn that 92% statistic until I’d been teaching a day or so, and when I heard it I was stunned. As far as I was concerned, these kids are great — interested, motivated, excited, more than a few with that light shining in their eyes. One or two troublemakers, sure, and several with apparent language or learning problems; but when it came time to write, those heads were bent over their pads too, writing in silent concentration.

I started out my week with only one real goal: To silence their inner critic, to drive a stake through the heart of the little demon who sits on every writer’s shoulder and whispers, “You suck.” I told the kids that rules matter, spelling matters, grammar matters, and they’d go to English class and learn and get graded on that stuff, but that in my class that stuff didn’t matter — just write. I told them all first drafts are crappy and it’s OK, that’s why God made second drafts. I read them Anne Lamott and Elmore Leonard and a lot more besides, all to get them to that point on Day 5 where they’d write for 20 minutes and not want to stop.

And now it’s over. The second school had a last-minute conflict and canceled my gig with apologies. Frankly, I’m not losing sleep over it. The Chicago weather has been beastly, I have to get up at 5:15, I miss my wife and family, and, frankly, Week Two would be drudgery as much as discovery.

I am left wondering how professional teachers do what they do — “on” five days a week, doing five or six “shows” a day, toughest audiences anywhere, one false move and you’re a goner. Not only that — you have to improvise, respond to what the kids give you, be ready to turn on a dime. As my “handler” Dan August put it, it’s like playing jazz. Angelina Jolie probably works one-fiftieth as hard and as much, and doesn’t worry about live audiences.

Meantime, teachers probably earn about the same as Angelina’s gardener. Most teachers surely have the brains, skills and stage presence to earn more, yet they put in 40-year careers, slogging away each day in the face of cutbacks, parental indifference, crappy facilities, budget cuts and now No Child, hoping to see that light in a few eyes. I doff the Magic Hat to them.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Good news: My novel TO LOVE MERCY has been honored by selection for the Open Book Program of the Institute for Positive Living — one of only three books selected each year. The Institute, a nonprofit group dedicated to instilling a love of reading in underprivileged kids, was to buy books for 250 kids and fly me back to Chicago to address them but …

P.P.S. Bad news: They serve kids down to 3rd grade, and TO LOVE MERCY is not appropriate for that age group. With embarrassment and regret, they backed out. But they love the novel and have offered a …

P.P.P.S. Consolation prize: Someone in their organization — a board member maybe — works for Oprah. They’re going to try getting a book to The Big O via that individual. Boy, do I hope they succeed.

I have white friends, people who ought to know better, who are shocked, shocked that a minister of the cloth would say the things Rev. Jeremiah Wright has said.

Rev. Wright, in case you’ve been sleeping under a rock, is the retired pastor of Barack Obama’s church in Chicago. He has been caught on YouTube saying highly critical things about the U.S. government and its alleged mistreatment of African-Americans over the years. Probably the most incendiary quote was this one, from Wikipedia:

“‘The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color’, referring to AIDS origins theories, and ‘The government gives them the drugs [referring to the Iran-Contra Affair], builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people…God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.’”

I have to ask those white friends of mine and others like them: How could you not know this was going on? How could you be unaware that many black Americans believe HIV is a government plot against them? That their government has been foisting addictive street drugs on them with malice aforethought? That they’ve been treated by that same government as less than human since, oh, slavery?

[I said “many.” Certainly not all black Americans believe such stuff. But as Senator Obama said in his big speech on race a few days ago, a “legacy of defeat” still flourishes in many corners of black America — mostly within the underclass, but also in the upper strata — that leads some African-Americans to believe the worst, including even paranoia about HIV plots. In light of syphilis experiments on uneducated, unsuspecting black men at Tuskegee, maybe such paranoia, though ridiculous, becomes understandable.]

I am not here to defend Rev. Wright, but to ask again: Why the heck are we whites so surprised? Aren’t we listening?

Guess not.

A lot of us whites seem to think race isn’t much of a problem these days, and things certainly have changed for the better. We see black faces in the White House (Rice, Powell), on the screen (Rock, Berry), on the courts (Magic) and the links (Tiger), even in some boardrooms (Richard Parsons of AOL, Bob Johnson of BET). We see black faces in our workplaces too and some are doing well; some have become our friends, or anyway workplace buddies. And now one African-American has a good shot at becoming President. But as that individual correctly stated in his speech:

“For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table.”

And, I would add, in the pulpit. My white friend Richard says, “I cannot imagine any Catholic priest saying, in public, ‘God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human.’” But actually the Catholic priests of the liberation theology movement have made many similar denunciations of repressive governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.

So did our secular saint, Dr. Martin Luther King. Dr. King is currently being held up as the anti-Jeremiah Wright, but here’s what he said in a 1968 sermon at his Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta [quoted by E.J. Dionne in today’s Washington Post]:

“God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place.”

So what is it with us whites? How can we so quickly forget Dr. King’s truly radical critique of America, and the even more radical critique of Malcolm X who many of us now profess to revere? Folks, I even listen to Louis Farrakhan. I detest him as an anti-Semite and worse, but I know he speaks for a segment of black American society, so I pay attention when he speaks and try to understand where he’s coming from.

I try to listen to the conversations of ordinary black Americans too, and participate in them when I can. It isn’t so hard, even if you don’t have black friends. Here in the Washington area, just tune in to the call-in shows on WPFW-FM, 89.3. In Chicago, where I’ve been spending a lot of time lately, tune in WVON-AM, 1690. Heck, on a good day you can even get a semi-earfull on C-SPAN.

Since slavery ended 143 years ago, our society has been stuck on this question of race. We can’t get past it because we won’t talk about it — not in an honest, open and forthright way, anyhow. We’re all of us, white and black, walking on eggs, afraid we’ll come to blows (or worse) if we say what we really think. And not only do we fail to talk; we also fail to listen, to creep out of our comfort zone and try to hear what the other guy is saying, even if it makes us squirm.

But change might be at hand at last. This presidential race has handed us a golden opportunity. Mr. Obama, responding to political pressure, has shown the leadership to take the question seriously. He is inviting us all, white and black, to start saying what’s on our minds, and thereby perhaps start to push the 800-pound gorilla out of our living rooms forever. I for one hope we accept the challenge.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’ll be in the Chicago area from March 28 through April 12. I am “Writer in Residence” at Thurgood Marshall Middle School (3/28-4/5) and Albany Park Multicultural Academy (4/6-12), teaching 7th and 8th graders to write narrative. How cool is that?

My friend Margie Weiner died of cancer Tuesday, not yet 60 years old.

Margie was a kid when I first met her, working for — sometimes against — the ineffable David Swit. David, although my dear friend (and ski buddy), was (in)famous for bullying his staff — except for two: Karen Harrington and Margie. Both these redoubtable women told David where to stick it on a daily basis, but it wasn’t only that: Without Karen, everyone would have walked off the job; without Margie, the money would have stopped pouring in.

Margie went on to become marketing director of many more companies in what used to be the newsletter business (now we call ourselves the “specialized information industry”). Then Margie started running companies — Food Chemical News, American Lawyer. She was smart, sharp, fast on her feet; a little bitty thing, but tough enough when she had to be. One of her eulogizers used the word “capable” to sum her up professionally, and that she surely was.

She was impatient with incompetence but encouraging where she saw promise. She’d knock herself out for you — not for payback but because you were her friend. She was funny, she was chummy, she made you feel good. It’s not surprising she had hundreds of friends, not surprising that she became president of our trade association (then called the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Assn. [NEPA], now the Specialized Information Publishers Assn. [SIPA]).

Margie and Larry fell in love when they were kids and were still in love Tuesday when she died. When I saw them several months ago, Larry was on compassionate leave from his job but facing having to return to work Jan. 1. As I watched him take care of her I thought, ‘This guy isn’t going back to work as long as this woman is breathing,’ and he didn’t.

Margie and Larry have two kids, Sam and Alexis. Sam spoke at length this morning, happy and funny as he recalled his happy, funny mom the way she’d like to be remembered. He lost it a bit at the end, but who wouldn’t? Alexis, through her grief, could speak only briefly.

Sam and his wife are expecting their first child in a few weeks. Margie had wanted to live to see this first grandchild. She’d wanted to visit Israel this spring too. When I saw her, frail and head-scarved but just as funny and upbeat as ever, I was pretty sure she’d accomplish both things. But she didn’t.

Margie and Larry were Jewish and observant. I’m Jewish and not observant but, as anyone who’s read my novel TO LOVE MERCY knows, I’m sure interested in religion. One of the things I’ve thought a lot about in recent years is God, or more specifically, the idea of God.

I used to think there was no God; then I realized that what I REALLY thought is that there is no personal God. That is, God isn’t paying attention: He or She (or It) doesn’t know what I’m doing, nor anyone, nor cares. No rewards for good behavior, no punishment for bad, no answered prayers, no eternity of harp-playing above the clouds, no end to man’s inhumanity to man. For most of us, once those things are gone, God’s gone, but that’s OK with me. Of course He/She/It exists, if you say so. Now can we stop arguing about it?

But every now and then I feel the touch of magic in my life and I think I see the hand of God. My kids, both adopted, but so much in tune with me that they must be my True Son and Daughter, the kids God meant me to have. My wife Carol, who loves me when I least deserve it and whose patience and understanding are without end. How can such luck exist but for a caring God? wonder I. Maybe such God-thoughts are just my Sunday-School training, implanted at such an early age that I’ll never rationalize my way out of it. But then I think, So what if they are? Haven’t I reached an age where it’s OK to be inconsistent if I want?

Margie was buried this sunny bright March morning in a pine box, its sole ornament a Star of David. The body returns to the dust but the soul finds its way to be rejoined with God, the rabbi said, and as I stood looking on with hundreds of Margie’s friends, that seemed right enough to me. There may not be room for a kazillion harp-players anywhere — not even Heaven — but there certainly ought to be room in an infinite and eternal God’s heart for Margie’s soul, and mine and yours and everyone else’s too.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Margie’s family is establishing a scholarship for marketing students. You can help it along with a tax-deductible donation to the Specialized Information Publishers Foundation, http://www.sipaonline.com/Foundation/SIPF_mission.htm

P.P.S. My friend David Swit, mentioned above, himself died several years ago of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a hardening of the lung tissues without apparent cause for which the only cure is a lung transplant. David died young too, just a few years into his 60s. David could drive you nuts (especially if you worked for him) but he had kick-ass news instincts and his generosity, kindness and good fellowship to others was legendary. Like Margie, he also was a president of NEPA. David was more serious about having fun than almost anyone I’ve ever known. His watchword was: “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” Fortunately for David and the rest of us, he did.

P.P.P.S. TO WALK HUMBLY, sequel to TO LOVE MERCY, is half-plus-three-chapters-written. Going way slower than I’d like, but I think some of it is pretty good. No way I’m going to meet my April 1 completion deadline, but at least I know where I’m heading.

We all know the habit of reading for pleasure is dying. But a chilling article in the current issue of The New Yorker (”Twilight of the Books, www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071224crat_atlarge_crain/) envisions the day when reading for pleasure may become merely “an increasingly arcane hobby.”

For many in America, I believe that day already has arrived. The question then becomes, Why does it matter? Why, when we have great choices available to us at little or no cost on TV, in the movies, on the Web and elsewhere, does it matter that we no longer rely on the printed word to stimulate our thoughts and imaginations?

For one thing, it matters because reading IS a unique, and uniquely stimulating, activity. Watching TV or a movie is principally passive, whereas reading is principally an activity of involvement. The action on the screen washes over you. But there is no “action” on the page; YOU must create the pictures, the sounds, the scents, the ambience. The author gives you the blocks; it’s up to you to build the building.

Right now I am in the middle of Bruce Wagner’s scarifying novel I’M LOSING YOU, Book I of his “Cellphone Trilogy.” It’s a great example of what I’m talking about. It is hands down the best thing ever written about Hollywood; but, even though it is about the movies, no movie could ever capture its subtleties. The novel is written in at least a dozen voices, through at least a dozen points of view, and every one of these narrators is unreliable. We the readers know more about them than they know about themselves, because of the skills of this uncommonly gifted author, who says so much but leaves so much more unsaid. Wagner is a screenwriter himself, but it doesn’t surprise me that he chose the novel form to tell this story.

I am also reading THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC by Daniel J. Levitin, a perfectly fascinating primer on neuroscience written with great panache by a guy who was in a rock band before he got his Ph.D. This book could indeed be made into a great series on PBS or the Discovery Channel, but you’d be watching a long long time before such a series could relay all the fascinating knowledge Levitin gracefully packs into 320 pages.

For another thing, failing to read for pleasure may be costing us some of our abilities to think. The New Yorker article makes this point in a variety of ways, among them the following. Quoting from a recent National Endowment for the Arts report, “To Read or Not to Read,” it says (striking terror into the hearts of parents everywhere): “Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.”

And here’s another cost we risk, which I ran across while researching my recent presentation on getting boys to read: Fiction coaxes us to place ourselves in the shoes of characters we won’t encounter in life, thereby building our capacities for empathy and understanding — which, whether you’re caring for an injured person or negotiating a business deal, can be real useful in real life.

There’s a lot of fascinating neuroscience in the New Yorker article too, and some equally fascinating cultural anthropology. It compares our thinking styles with those of preliterate “oral” cultures to show how reading molds our worldviews and shapes what we are pleased to call “intelligence.” In one study it cites, illiterate peasants were unable or unwilling to make logical inferences about hypothetical situations. “Asked by [the researcher’s] staff about polar bears, a peasant grew testy: ‘What the cock knows how to do, he does. What I know, I say, and nothing beyond that!’” It continues:

“[Another researcher] synthesized existing research into a vivid picture of the oral mind-set. Whereas literates can rotate concepts in their minds abstractly, orals embed their thoughts in stories. According to [the researcher], the best way to preserve ideas int he absence of writing is to ‘think memorable thoughts,’ whose zing insures their transmission. [Shades of writing a “grabber” novel opening!] In an oral culture, cliche and stereotype are valued, as accumulations of wisdom, and analysis is frowned upon, for putting those accumulations at risk. There’s no such concept as plagiarism, and redundancy is an asset that helps an audience follow a complex argument.”

Not only novels will go bye-bye, but newspapers too (gone already, eh?), with their ability to present argument and counter-argument and go beneath the surface in a way broadcast news cannot do. Indeed, the New Yorker author, Caleb Crain, seems to think all is lost. “No effort of will is likely to make reading popular again,” he wrings his hands. “Children may be browbeaten, but adults resist interference with their pleasures.”

Hey, I do this stuff too. I listen to recorded books in the car all the time. I’m listening to Tom Perrotta’s LITTLE CHILDREN right now, and it’s first rate in the way a fine novel ought to be — you savor the prose and fill in the blanks, much as you’d do if you were reading instead of auditing. Because of that need to fill in the blanks, it seems to me that listening to books is a lot more like reading them than watching movies is.

I know this is a pretty heavy topic for Christmas Eve so I’ll lighten up. Have wonderful holidays, everyone. There’ll be enough time in the New Year to be afraid, very afraid.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Remember about me being asked to be “Writer in Residence” at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Chicago? Make that two schools. Thurgood Marshall has talked me up to the nearby Albany Park Multicultural Academy. For two weeks in early spring, I’ll be teaching seventh and eighth graders how to write narrative. Apropos of the above topic, if I were to save a soul or two I’d be a happy guy.

P.P.S. Apropos of none of the above (except the movies), the boffo boxoffice hit of the moment is “I Am Legend.” If you want to see a truly awful movie — implausible from the first scene on, maudlin, badly acted, badly directed, muddled story, bad ending, zero out of a possible five stars, what in the world can I think of to say worse about it? — this is that movie. Bah humbug!

I’m not planning to vote for Mitt Romney. He’s smart, competent and has a great jawline, but he is a shameful flip-flopper, a man so eager to get elected that he is ready to abandon whatever principles he may have had.

My opposition has nothing to do with his religion though and, if you oppose Romney, I hope your opposition is not on religious grounds either.

In fact, I’d like to stick up for Romney’s religion, or anyway its secular aspects.

Romney is a Mormon. Mormonism – more properly known as the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, or LDS – is a purebred American religion that emerged during the 1830s when a young man in upstate New York, Joseph Smith, claimed to have discovered buried golden tablets inscribed with new religious instructions from heaven. Smith’s followers ultimately migrated to Utah. There, they created their heaven on earth centered in Salt Lake City, and there it remains, though plenty of Mormons reside elsewhere too.

I met my first Mormon in high school, a kid named David Bedwell. He was not unusual in any discernible way. I don’t even know how or why I knew he was a Mormon. I assumed Mormons were Christians like everyone else (except us Jews).

Then I started going out West to ski and met lots more Mormons. Seventy per cent of Utahns are Mormons, and Utahns are nice. Unusually nice – polite, solicitous, well-mannered beyond what you’d expect in, say, New York City. (No, let’s be realistic and compare Utahns to, say, Chicagoans. Nicer than most Chicagoans. WAY nicer than most New Yorkers.)

Mormons are more than nice; they are unusually successful in American society. They are relatively affluent (Utah median income is $45,726 vs. $41,994 nationwide); relatively generous (22% of Mormons give $5,000 a year or more to church-related causes, vs. 9% of Southern Baptists and 2% of Catholics, according to J. Quin Monson of BYU and David Campbell of Notre Dame, quoted in the Boston Phoenix); and relatively self-sacrificing. At any moment there are about 50,000 young Mormons giving a year or so of their lives as missionaries – proselytizing, to be sure, but also doing good and helping others. The LDS Church strongly urges its youth to be missionaries; Mitt Romney served as a Mormon missionary for 2½ years.

And Mormons have stable families. While many Mormons divorce at rates comparable to other Americans, Mormons who commit to one another in the demanding “temple marriage” show only a 6% divorce rate. (Source: BYU Prof. Daniel K. Judd, quoted in the Los Angeles Times.)

Mormon family stability traces back to some unusual Mormon “family values.” From the BBC website:

“Mormon families differ from other families in that they can continue to exist as families after earthly death; and they live with the expectation that they will live again with their ancestors and their eventual descendants. Mormon parents regard it as their duty … to have children in order to create physical bodies for spirits to come to earth in order to fullfil God’s plan.”

I can think of two other religious groups that have been extraordinarily successful in their respective societies despite being tiny minorities (1.8% to 1.9% of the population), and in the face of religious persecution that sometimes rises to the level of violence: Jews in America, and Sikhs in India. The basic beliefs of Mormons, Jews and Sikhs may have little in common, but all three groups share a commitment to the centrality of family life.

(Sikhs occupy a niche in Hindu-dominated Indian society strikingly analogous to that of Jews in America. Carol and I know a lot of Sikhs, and we spent a month in India as the guest of Sikhs. It’s a long story, don’t ask.)

When it comes down to it, I don’t care what religious beliefs my President holds as long as he or she is doing a job for me. On that score, Mitt and I seem to diverge. Facing the same kind of voter hostility because of his Mormonism that John F. Kennedy faced in 1960 on account of his Roman Catholicism, Romney just delivered a major speech about faith in public life. He felt compelled to reassure voters he believes “that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind.” While he called for religious tolerance in public life, Romney also said “nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places,” and added: “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.”

Romney may welcome more demonstrations of religiosity in public life but lately I’ve had a bellyful of it. I deplore the litmus tests candidates feel compelled to take these days as they try to out-pander one another for the votes of the faithful. I’m with JFK who in his 1960 speech said: “I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

Yeah, Mitt, I knew John Kennedy and, believe me, you are no John Kennedy. And by the way, where did you pick up that ridiculous nickname?

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Congratulations to my baby sister Judith Susan Joseph Thompson Assisi, affectionately known as Hey You, on her release from thralldom. Welcome to the free world, Toots. Now get to work on your tennis game.

Couple of years ago I couldn’t spell ‘young adult author.’ Now I are one.

I appeared at ten public high schools and middle schools during my recent trip to Chicago:

• One Chicago middle school (Thurgood Marshall) invited me back as “Writer in Residence.” For a week in late March, I’ll be teaching seventh and eighth graders how to write narrative.

• Another (Montefiore Special School) has invited me back for a presentation to three schools — Montefiore and two other nearby elementary schools.

• And a third (North River Elementary) has asked me to consider being commencement speaker.

I am deeply gratified and, frankly, stunned. When asked about being commencement speaker, my first reaction was to laugh nervously and blurt something like, ‘Oh, SURELY you can do better than me.’ And ‘Writer in Residence’? Holy moley.

There’s more. The Chicago Public Schools have taken a strong interest in TO LOVE MERCY, my first novel. An autographed copy has been hand-carried to Rufus Williams, the president of Chicago Public Schools, and the wheels are now turning inside CPS headquarters. I don’t know what will come of this, but fingers, toes and you-know-whats are crossed. (Eyes, fool.)

Add to that, we sold or handed out close to 450 copies of TO LOVE MERCY during my 2 1/2 weeks in Chicago. Most of these copies were bought by the schools where I appeared.

What fascinates me is this novel’s appeal down to seventh grade. As I’ve said before, I didn’t think I was writing a young-adult novel; if anything, I thought I was writing an OLD-adult novel. TO LOVE MERCY contains a little language, plus references to pederasty and murder, and the historical references will sail right over most kids’ heads. But it’s also a book about kids, with kids as protagonists … and boy-type kids, at that; it’s written in words of one and two syllables (”Fog Index” = 4th grade); and its themes of race and religion, conflict and reconciliation are just what schools want kids to be thinking and talking about. Plus, with its strong Chicago setting, it’s especially appealing to Chicago schools.

I have no problem with kids as readers. If a good book can change a life, it’s likelier to change an open young life than a jaded older one. Face it, the world wants us all in cubbies of some sort; I’m comfortable enough in this YA cubby, as long as I can continue writing what I want to write and not be asked to talk down to readers.

-0-0-0-

Regarding my last blog (”Boys and books, Part II”), Rich Weinfeld asked me to clarify that, although both his grade-school-age sons confirmed the statistics about homophobic insults, the stats were drawn from SMART BOYS by Sanford Cohn and originated in a study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Network. Also, the assertion that men and women differ genetically at about the same 1%-2% rate that humans differ from chimpanzees, comes from Rich’s book HELPING BOYS TO SUCCEED IN SCHOOL, not Michael Gurian’s; Rich found it in a Washington Post article that cited an MIT study.

Last word on getting boys to read goes to Son Sam, who comments: “There needs to be a way that boys see that girls like smart, well read guys. Man, when I figured that out is when reading really started becoming exciting.”

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

Dear Friend of Frank,

On Nov. 3, I gave a presentation, “Getting Boys to Read,” to the Illinois School Library & Media Assn. (ISLMA) annual meeting in Springfield IL. It was enthusiastically received — as well it might be. After all, I had devoted two full weeks to its study.

Chutzpah, thy name is Frank.

Chutzpah aside, a lot of people — educators, parents, Bill Gates for God’s sake — are really worried about the decline in reading for pleasure, especially among boys. I am too, which is why I chose the topic (that and the fact that I knew it’d draw a good crowd, which it did).

I didn’t become an expert in two weeks, but I did learn some fascinating stuff, to wit:

• Girls can sit at a desk with their hands folded and learn learn learn, but boys tend to have ants in their pants. Many boys just need to move around, experience variety, get their senses stimulated. But in school — especially elementary school — kids are expected to maintain focus for long periods and information “is primarily presented in the same low-tech way that it has been for years – listening to a teacher talk or reading a book.” As one boy put it: “School is where you sit at a desk all day and listen to women talk.”

• Reading is gay. Boys will seize any opportunity to put down other boys as “sissies;” one common way they do it is to say reading is for sissies. I didn’t believe this until my friend Rich Weinfeld, a nationally recognized authority on these topics, told me boys deliver homophobic taunts 20-30 times every school day. Rich’s source: His own grade-school-age son.

• Corollary to reading-is-gay is the “boy code”: don’t cry, don’t ask for help, don’t reach out for comfort or reassurance, don’t show tenderness, etc. This has an impact on boys and learning. One of those books I read said: “With little or no practice in identifying and talking about their own emotions or emotions of others, boys tend to be at a loss to discuss what a character in a story or book they read was feeling.”

• Boys at age 5-6 may lag girls developmentally by as much as a year and a half. They are physiologically unready to read. But in many schools, especially public schools in elite neighborhoods full of go-getting rat-racing moms and dads, kindergarten is the new first grade and reading is the curriculum. Here’s what Leonard Sax MD, author of BOYS ADRIFT, had to say about that: “The first thing that happens when you ask kids to do stuff they have no interest in doing is they stop paying attention. … The second thing … is they get annoyed. They get irritable. They withdraw. ‘I hate school. It’s stupid.’ Anything associated with school becomes uncool. Reading is uncool.”

• Michael Gurian, author of THE MINDS OF BOYS, makes other fascinating developmental points:
– Boys differ genetically from girls by 1%-2% … the same difference that separates ALL humans from chimpanzees. (I got a big appreciative snicker with that one.)
– Boys’ bloodstreams carry more dopamine, a marker for impulsive behavior.
– The frontal lobes in boys’ brains develop later, a marker for poor executive decisionmaking.
– The language centers in boys’ brains develop later.
– The hormonal mix in boys’ bloodstreams favors aggression, sex, territoriality, hierarchy.
– Girls’ brains multitask better, boys’ brains compartmentalize better.

• Time was when boys and girls entered puberty around 12 or 13. No more, apparently — now some girls enter puberty up to three years earlier, whereas some boys don’t do so for as much as two years later. Imagine an eighth-grade class full of sexually mature women and sexually immature boys. Now imagine trying to learn anything. At all. [The reasons for these developmental differences are unclear, but Sax cites suspicious environmental causes including, of all things, the phthalate-based plastic that baby bottles are made of.]

What to do? In the classroom, boys do better when they can move around and “be boys.” They often like to act out what they read. They like being split into teams and making reading a competitive activity. They need role models — the Chicago Public Schools have a program, “Real Men Read,” that seeks to address this. All those things schools are cutting out as frills and frippery — recess, gym, art, music — are helpful in getting kids into the frame of mind to read, to learn. Gurian, quoting a teacher: “I began taking my class down to the gym and letting them run laps before our spelling tests. The boys especially showed marked improvement in their test grades.”

And boys appreciate choice. If they’d rather read about A-Rod than A TALE OF TWO CITIES, let ‘em. Throw the canon out entirely, at least until high school. Don’t ever force one more boy to read THE DEERSLAYER.

And never, never make them read JANE EYRE or PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Boys won’t read about girls. Boys will read about boys. They will read about animals and robots too, if they’re boy-like … but not about girls. Girls will read about girls. Girls will read about boys. Girls will read about just about anything (this is not just me talking — educators confirm it) … but Boys. Will. Not. Read. About. Girls.

The point my presentation led up to was this: Boys — anyone, actually — respond to Story, Character, Voice, Situation, Plot, Conflict, Fair vs. Unfair, Good vs. Evil … all the good old things they teach us in writers’ workshops. Boys — all readers, actually — just want the author to grab them by the lapels and yank them headlong into the tale, then keep them so amused/confused/terrified/excited/rapt that they can’t stop turning the pages.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Rich Weinfeld’s book HELPING BOYS SUCCEED IN SCHOOL [ISBN 1-59363-198-7] was a tremendous resource in preparing my ISLMA presentation — comprehensive, up-to-date, concise and eminently readable. It’s $16.95 but Amazon discounts it to $12.71. Click here: http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Boys-Succeed-School-Terry/dp/1593631987/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196385405&sr=8-1

P.P.S.  This is my first blog in more than six weeks. I was totally tied up preparing for my Chicago trip, then even more tied up once I got there. I spoke at 10 schools, four bookstores, four public libraries, a book club and ISLMA, plus I interviewed 11 Hyde Park High School alumni as research for TO WALK HUMBLY, my novel-in-progress. Unbelievably great things happened in Chicago. Watch this space.

My first novel To Love Mercy is about, among other things, kids — how children view the world. Its protagonists are a white Jewish boy named Steve, a son of privilege, and a black street kid nicknamed Sass whose father is a storefront preacher. It is also about intractable social issues — race, class and religion in American society. A kids’ book it ain’t … or so I thought.

But from well before it was finished, readers were asking whether it was a young-adult (YA) novel. This seemed to me like an oversimplification: kids-as-protagonists = YA. No, I responded — with its nostalgic evocations of Chicago in 1948 it was, if anything, an Old Adult Novel. My publisher, Patrick Grace, felt the same and published it as “mainstream period fiction” for general audiences. It was a big plus in our relationship that Patrick had read the book I thought I’d written.

But it didn’t take long before we bumped up against the marketplace. Debbie Smart, then assistant manager of Barnes & Noble-Arlington Heights IL, the very first bookseller I got to know, said she thought the novel was a YA. She cited three reasons: 1) kids as protagonists, 2) kids on the cover, and 3) large type. (The type is larger than is typical, for reasons Patrick has never convincingly explained, since he didn’t see it the book as a YA. Maybe he saw it as an OA and wanted to help the boomers with their reading glasses.)

There were other reasons to view it a YA, though, as I was to discover:

• Schools are real interested in books that deal candidly with race.
• Schools are real interested in books with boys as protagonists. Boys are hard cases when it comes to reading. They respond best to “boy” books — of which, I was to discover, there aren’t so many.
• Schools are real interested in books that are easy to read … and To Love Mercy is, I acknowledge with a trace of embarrassment. The issues are complex but the language is simple — words of one and two syllables, boy-speak. Its “Fog Index” tests out at fourth-grade level. (This fact courtesy of Amazon.com’s mind-boggling array of tools.)

We started referring to To Love Mercy as “mainstream period fiction with crossover appeal to young adults.” Classify or die.

To Love Mercy went on to do well — real well. It won six awards, garnered 23 five-star reviews on Amazon (some from you dear Friends of Frank), and went into a second printing. On the strength of this record, among other things, it attracted a top-notch literary agent, Michele Rubin of Writers House in New York, who signed me up and asked …

… ‘Frank, how would you feel if I sold your work as YA?’

We-elll. The marketplace had spoken. Who was I to resist?

Actually I didn’t mind it at all. Kids are the best readers — because they have read the fewest books. A good book can stay with a kid all his or her life. And the YA genre’s formerly tight restrictions are loosening as publishers, parents and kids acknowledge the reality that a kid’s life isn’t a Disney movie — that kids today have to deal with their own versions of hell, and a book that understands that is a book they will read. As long as I don’t have to write about powder-puff derbies and gossip girls, I’m down with it.

Thus, we are now aiming our efforts at schools. Through the good offices of dear Marla Wolf, I am appearing at ELEVEN Chicago-area schools in November. And through the good offices of dear Jane Sharka, President of the Illinois School Library Media Assn., I am addressing her annual meeting in Springfield on the topic, “Getting Boys to Read.”

And all this week, I’ve been hammering out a Study Guide for To Love Mercy. It’s been hard work, requiring me to put still more distance from a work that once was like my flesh and blood. First I had to separate myself from it as a marketer; now I have to separate from it again, this time seeing it as a teacher would.

But it’s been fun too. The Study Guide opens with a three-page historical overview, and I’ve illustrated it with period photos found on the Internet and elsewhere. I’ve enjoyed dreaming up the questions too, especially those that end, “If you don’t know the answer, look it up.”

But I’ve never done something like this and I’m not sure what I’ve created is what educators are looking for. So, to you Friends of Frank who are educators, I’d like to request a favor: Please look over the Study Guide and email me your comments and critiques, if any. I’ve posted the draft at www.frankjoseph.com/studyguide. Thanks in advance.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. We’ve added another bookstore appearance for my upcoming Chicago trip! Please visit Borders Books in Oak Park IL, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 4. The store is smack in the center of downtown Oak Park, corner of Lake Street and Harlem Avenue.

Here are the rest of my Chicago-area public appearances –

• Wednesday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m. — Barnes & Noble, Village Crossing Center, 5405 W. Touhy Ave., Skokie IL

• Thursday, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m. — Schaumburg Central Library, 130 S. Roselle Rd., Schaumburg IL

• Friday, Nov. 9, 7 p.m. — Local author night, The Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave. (Lincoln Square), Chicago

• Saturday, Nov. 10, 2 p.m. — Homewood Library, 17917 Dixie Hwy., Homewood IL

• Sunday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m. — Barnes & Noble, Westfield Hawthorne Mall, Vernon Hills IL

• Tuesday, Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m. — Skokie Public Library, 5215 Oakton St., Skokie IL

• Thursday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m. — Arlington Heights Memorial Library, 500 N. Dunton Ave., Arlington Heights IL

The full Chicago-area appearance schedule, including the 11 schools, is posted at www.tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_appearances.html

P.P.S. This posting is called “Part I” because I expect to say more on this topic after I ready my “Getting Boys to Read” presentation. Stay tuned.

I am blessed by the kindness of strangers.

The latest blessed stranger is Marla Wolf, whose generous assistance I cannot hope to repay. Marla has booked me into ELEVEN schools on my November trip to Chicago. Among them –

• Hyde Park Academy (formerly Hyde Park High). Hyde Park High is the setting for much of To Walk Humbly, the novel I am writing now. My mom graduated from Hyde Park High; I’d have too, except my family fled to the suburbs during the “white flight” that is a subject of this novel.

• Englewood Academy (formerly Englewood High). Key characters in To Walk Humbly  live in Englewood, the neighborhood to the southwest of Hyde Park. My dad grew up in Englewood; he attended Englewood High until my grandparents packed him off to military school.

• Shore High (formerly South Shore High), in the neighborhood just south of Hyde Park. When I was growing up in Hyde Park, many of my friends attended South Shore.

I met Marla through Gail Duberchin, another so-far stranger of immense kindness. Gail and I are on a listserv about marketing Jewish-themed books. One day Gail, who is in the Chicago suburbs, put out a call for help. I responded, and before we knew it we were buddies — exchanging stories to critique, sharing tips and experiences. When I mentioned that I needed to contact Chicago-area schools, Gail put me in touch with her Cousin Marla, who is the librarian at the Pulaski Fine Arts Academy (yes, Marla has booked me there too). Marla could as easily have had a stellar career as a marketer or agent.

That’s how things happen in the Internet era, eh?

As I said, it isn’t possible to express how grateful I am to Gail and Marla — both of whom I have yet to meet in person. And they’re not the only strangers with whose kindness I have been blessed. There’s …

• Debbie Smart of Barnes & Noble. One day, as Debbie tells the story, she opened a box of books and To Love Mercy, my first novel, fell out. She read it, loved it and contacted my publisher. At that time, Debbie was assistant manager of the Arlington Heights IL Barnes & Noble, where I made my first-ever bookstore appearance. That was on a Friday night; the next morning was my second bookstore appearance — also at Debbie’s store. Debbie has written an article about my novel for the B&N employee newsletter; gotten it onto reading lists at Wheeling High; had me address a teachers meeting in her store; and has invited me back twice, the latest to her new store, Barnes & Noble-Westfield Hawthorne Mall in Vernon Hills IL, where she is, deservedly, manager. (That appearance is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m. Please come! Meet me! Meet Debbie!) Debbie Smart is one of the great unsung entrepreneurs of the book business; it is my good fortune that our paths crossed.

• Dan Lauber. Dan is a publisher in Oak Park with whom I did business when I published the FEDERAL PERSONNEL GUIDE, so not technically a stranger; but I really got to know Dan only after he read (and loved) To Love Mercy. Turns out Dan and I have been tracking each other’s footsteps all our lives though neither of us knew it. Dan knows everyone in Chicago. He got me an introduction to Timuel Black, the historian of Bronzeville, when all other efforts had failed; and has been helpful in dozens of other ways small and large. Plus he’s a White Sox fan and deeply knowledgeable about gelato.

• And so many others who have been so helpful along the way. Some are relatives, some old friends, some new friends, some strangers who’ve become friends. Ann Shlensky Hoenig. Judy Thornber. Barbara Koretz Katz. Bea Greene. Jack Foster. Joyce Rotman Brengle. Skye Blaine. Ellen Sandler. Mike and Marilyn Hollman. Jane Sharka. Jolyn Robichaux. Tory Cowles. Davida Berger Kristy. And undoubtedly others I’m forgetting, for which my sincere apologies. I can’t thank you enough, all of you.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Please come see me in Chicago! Here are the public appearances –

• Wednesday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m. — Barnes & Noble, Village Crossing Center,  5405 W. Touhy Ave., Skokie IL

• Thursday,  Nov. 8,  7:30 p.m. — Schaumburg Central Library,  130 S. Roselle Rd.,  Schaumburg IL

• Friday, Nov. 9, 7 p.m. — Local author night, The Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave. (Lincoln Square), Chicago

• Saturday, Nov. 10, 2 p.m. — Homewood Library, 17917 Dixie Hwy., Homewood IL

• Sunday, Nov. 11, 2 p.m. — Barnes & Noble, Westfield Hawthorne Mall, Vernon Hills IL

• Tuesday, Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m. — Skokie Public Library, 5215 Oakton St., Skokie IL

• Thursday, Nov. 15, 7 p.m. — Arlington Heights Memorial Library, 500 N. Dunton Ave., Arlington Heights IL

The full appearance schedule, including the 11 schools, is posted at http://www.tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_appearances.html