Byrd Baylor

Byrd Baylor is 87 years old. She has written 30 or so books, four of which have received Caldecott Honor Awards. Her books are her love letter to the desert she loves. She is currently working on a book of personal essays about her unusual life.

Her name, Byrd, is her mother's maiden name. The family descended from General Byrd. She also descends from the founder of Baylor University.


She lives in a solar-powered adobe house 50 miles south of Tucson, Arizon. She has a generator for the little electricity she uses and she types on a manual typewriter. She gets her news from a portable radio and her friends drop off newspapers at a cafe six miles away.

Read articles about her in the Arizona Daily Star [ here ] and the Arizona Public Media [ here ].

Listen to an interview with Byrd Baylor [ here ]. She reads an essay, "Good Women Who Love Bad Trucks."

Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site has some ideas on how to use her books [ here ]. 

Jeeves, Girl Wonder and her son have done a fabulous job making recordings of some of her books.

Check it out!

I'm In Charge of Celebrations by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Jeeves [ here ].

Before You Came This Way by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Jeeves [ here ].

If You Are a Hunter of Fossils by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Girl Wonder's son [ here ].

The Desert is Theirs by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Girl Wonder [ here ].

The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Girl Wonder [ here ].

Your Own Best Secret Place by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Girl Wonder and her son [ here ].

The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor

Listen to the recording by Jeeves [ here ].

Our Visit to Rwanda

For our discussion on The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba, Girl Wonder welcomed us with African bookmarks that she had made . . .

and treated us to luscious fruit and cream . . . 

Girl Wonder says:

The whipped cream is shelf stable whipping cream purchase at Gossner's Cheese Factory in Logan, UT. They also have shelf stable milk. One problem about shelf stable milk and cream is that has only has a 7 or 8 month shelf life... It tastes wonderful, but doesn't store for long periodsl. It is really great for camping and when you run out of milk and it's Saturday night."

and sweet potato cookies.

Cake Mix Recipe
1 yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
Optional: 1/2 cup of sweet potato, or oatmeal, coconut, etc.
Mix everything together. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes exactly. Allow cookies to set up as they need to finish cooking on the cookie sheet.

Here are the links that were shared:

Moab's link to article about baptism for dead controversy [here].

Sereia's link to the Washington Post article about The Book of Mormon musical [here].