The Answer to the Riddle

Remember this piece? I wrote about it here.  I feel like anyone who bought this print at The Calgary Expo has now had ample opportunity to decipher it, and so it's time to post the answer.

'I speak a language with two characters. To understand me, you have to ask what time it is.'

That's the riddle written at the bottom of the image. The language with only two characters is binary, which is made up of 1's and 0's. What time is it? If you write down the times on the clocks from left to right, top to bottom, keeping in mind that you only want 1's and 0's, you get this:

01:11
10:01
01:11
10:01
01:10
00:11

That last one is a bit tricky to figure out, since '00' doesn't show up on an analogue clock, but since 12:11 has a '2' and there are no 2's in binary, 00 is the alternative way to think about that time.

011110010111100101100011 translated from binary into english is yyc, which is the airport code for Calgary. The hidden message in the image is 'Calgary'.

Smorgasbook 2015

Last Tuesday I was thrilled to participate in Smorgasbook, an event put on by the Young Alberta Book Society. I presented both Bye, Bye, Butterflies! and Charlie's Dirt Day to local teachers and librarians. It was my first time doing an even like that but it won't be my last. I had a wonderful time meeting and chatting with the teachers and librarians, as well as with the other participating authors. Alberta has some really great literary talent. I left the event feeling so inspired and eager to read middle grade and young adult novels. I'm really excited to be part of this community and hope to do more events in the future.

Thanks to everyone who bought my books for their schools and libraries, and to everyone who has made inquiries since. It felt great to get so much positive feed back :)

Here are some of the other authors who were in attendance. Check out their books!

Carolyn Fisher
Karen Bass
Bill Bunn
Deborah F. Miller
Shirlee Smith Matheson
Cora Taylor
Lois Donovan
David Poulsen
Trina St. Jean