Category: Cheesie Mack

Cheesie Mack and Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Every author visit I make to schools around the country is different. Schools have distinct personalities, and my presentation is redirected by local influences. One school might put up posters and have a Cheesie Mack Day. Another might get me interviewed by the local newspaper. But for every school, in this time of tight budgets and difficult curricular challenges, my visit is always a big deal…and I am greeted with great excitement.

Some things—no matter which school—are universal.

When Cheesie comes to school, the students are enthusiastic. Their intellectual curiosity is engaged and stimulated. And their laughter is large, spontaneous, and joyful.

And then there’s the nearly obligatory mac ‘n’ cheese luncheon. The kids love it, and I love their gusto.

I often ask for a salad.

Mac Crash

My 3.5-year-old Macbook Pro went on the disabled list Wednesday.

Symptoms: Normal start up, but then, as the blue screen and desktop icons appeared, so did the spinning beach ball of death…and a queasy stomach.

Interior sirens wailing, I rushed to my not-too-far-away Apple Store where, amid dozens of milling i-enthusiasts, the patient was taken into the back room, and I was told to go home and wait. Two hours later I got the news. “It’s a severe hard disk charley horse. Maybe even a full quadriceps tear,” the Apple Genius said with great sympathy. This made sense to me; I had noticed, over the past couple of months, a not-so-subtle limp and an intermittent tendency to be slower than normal on ground balls to the backhand. Continue reading “Mac Crash”

Steve Cotler in Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin

For fairly obvious reasons, Harvard Business School keeps very good track of and contact with its alumni. One of the best things they do is their magazine, HBS Alumni Bulletin. Some of the articles are interesting, okay, uh-huh, but the real reason alumni turn this mag’s pages is the Class Notes. Every class that still has a living member has someone who actively solicits personal stories about those individuals. Much of the blather is routine stuff: “My wife sits on the hospital board. I golf whenever I can. And the kids are struggling to make ends meet in NYC on traders’ salaries.”

I skim those entries, looking for the unusual. Like this in the September 2011 issue from Continue reading “Steve Cotler in Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin”

Cheesie Mack: Back Home in Massachusetts

Cheesie lives in Gloucester. MA

Cheesie returns to his home state in a couple of days for a two-week whirlwind of book events. The lad “lives” in Gloucester, so of course I’ll be speaking at two elementary schools there, as well as schools, both public and private, in Cambridge, Arlington, Newton, Sutton, Millbury, and Auburn. Plus libraries in Easton, and Millbury (pizza party there!).

It’ll be great fun. My typical presentation is here.

Altogether, I’m doing 12 schools and two libraries in two weeks. Whew!

Then I’m off to Brooklyn for three schools in two days.

If you would like Cheesie in your school or library, contact me. My calendar is getting full, but there are still a few open slots.

Cheesie Mack and the Reading Detectives

How do you get kids excited about reading?

My answer is to show them how reading a good book is an adventure in itself. I get them to ask themselves questions. Questions like: Who are these characters? Why did the plot take that turn? How did the author create this mood?

I call it being a reading detective.

And in that spirit, my school presentations consist of lots of questions. Using my middle grades novel, Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything, first in a series from Random House, I engage students, exhorting them to become reading detectives.

Here’s a short video that captures Continue reading “Cheesie Mack and the Reading Detectives”