Some of you may remember that I went to the public library in Belmar, NJ on September 29th of last year to read At the Boardwalk at their cute, historic library. I put up a post about the visit. Thirty days later, Hurricane Sandy came ashore, with what used to be the eye passing just over Brigantine, NJ, a bit to the south of Belmar. Towns to the north of the eye were walloped, including Belmar, which lost its entire 1.3 miles of boardwalk to the superstorm.

The town of Belmar started construction on its new boardwalk in January. Today, I was invited by the library to attend the grand opening of the new boardwalk - all 1.3 miles of it have been rebuilt, stronger and better than ever - and to read At the Boardwalk to some of the schoolkids on the beach after the ceremony was complete. (All of the school children from the public and Catholic school in town had been bused to the beach, wearing their "Tougher Than The Storm: Belmar/Belmarvelous" T-shirts.) There on the right you can see Mayor Matt Doherty, Governor Chris Christie, and Senator Bob Menendez cutting the ribbon to make it official.

I was extremely fortunate that my friend John Rowen decided to make the trek from Pennsylvania to take pictures of me during the reading. He did a really great job, and I'm just going to share a few of the photos with you below.


Here I am getting ready to read to the kindergartners on the beach. With an airhorn.



Here's me, reading to the kindergartners. You can see the ocean in the background.


Here I am again, from another angle. That's Liz Cole from Belmar Elementary holding the book.

It was a privilege and an honor to be asked to attend the grand opening of the boardwalk and to share my book with the kids from Belmar Elementary School. My thanks to the good people of Belmar, and to John Rowen, for a really wonderful day.