July is almost over, and here in Palm Beach County, although the season is still scorching—and will remain so for some time yet—it’s almost fall for the school system. The local schools open on August 16th.

It means once again yielding to street-crossing students up at the corner when I’m driving, once again being halted in progress whenever a school bus stops and flashes its red lights, once again having my progress impeded by heavy traffic when driving past either of the two schools up the road at arrival or dismissal time.

But it also means a new set of ears—ears to listen to me reading my books.

You see, I write books both for children and for adults. And I read some of the books for kids—primarily the picture books—to eager ears at some of the local pre-schools.

It’s tough to get permission to read in the public schools. They are oh-so-careful who they let in to the schools in these perilous times of ours. But the pre-schools aren’t as excessively cautious, and a fair number of them welcome me. And now that we are starting a new school year, the pre-schools are about to start a new year, too. That means the kids who were in the younger groups last year will move up to the pre-K classes soon, and new kids will be eligible to be enrolled in the VPK class. My picture books are generally suited to kids of pre-K age through grade 3. So the kids who last year were in the younger groups are now old enough to hear my books.

A new set of ears.

Among the books I read to the kids are two from Roundtable, ANTS IN HIS PANTS and OCTOPUS PIE. (The others are from two others of my publishers.)

I had read all the suitable books to all the suitable-aged kids in the schools on my roster and had begun prospecting for new pre-schools to read to. I did sign up a few, but then realization hit me: The new school year is about to start, and there’ll be a whole new crop of kids in the VPK and pre-K classes who haven’t yet heard my stories. I can start making the rounds of the same old schools all over again. There’s a new set of ears about to start the new school year, and they’re a prime audience for my stories.

So I have a new set of ears awaiting me—and I look forward to sharing my stories with them.

Every author treasures a receptive audience.