WEBVTT

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Now, I want to read
a children's book.

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I want to read it because
the girl in this book's name

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is Sonora, because
it's so beautiful.

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And I started this book
because-- now there's

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an age when kids
are very embarrassed

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about their parents.

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Have you noticed that?

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There's an age when there's
nothing you do that is OK.

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And mine have things
like-- first of all,

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don't laugh like you laugh--

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I laugh loudly.

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Don't laugh like you laugh.

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Don't walk like you walk.

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Are you going to wear that?

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My god, woman!

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You know, that sort of thing.

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And they used to always
tell their friends,

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when their friends want to
know what their mother did,

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they'd always said
she was a teacher.

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That's because they were very
embarrassed that I wrote poems,

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and so I started
thinking about it.

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And I started thinking
about that kind of thing.

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And one day, my son came
up to me and said, Ma,

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I got ugly last night.

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And I thought he hadn't.

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And so this is a
children's book,

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and it's in five chapters.

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"Sonora Beautiful.

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Chapter one.

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Some mornings, I wake
up, and I am real ugly.

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I'm not joking.

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My face is all broken out.

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My ears are waving like wings.

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My legs and arms have
shrunk or something.

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My clothes fall off
me like a stick.

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Everything's hanging loose.

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I'm not joking.

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I don't fill out anything,
but my shoes, real ugly.

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I go across the hall
and bang on the door.

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Ma!

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Ma!

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Something happened
to me last night.

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I got real ugly!

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Then my mother comes out.

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She looks at me, and she says,
just like she does, oh stop.

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You are beautiful,
Sonora, beautiful.

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Chapter two.

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And that's another
thing about Sonora--

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whoever heard of
anybody named that?

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There is not another
person in my whole school

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with a name like Sonora.

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I'm not joking.

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People are supposed to be
named after flowers, or months,

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or other people,
but oh no, not me.

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I had to be named
after a desert.

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I'm not joking.

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There's this desert in
Arizona, where my mother first

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saw Andrew.

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He's my dad.

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She was on this bus tour.

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The bus stopped someplace
on the edge of this desert.

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My mother looked out the window
and saw this guy, Andrew.

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They both went nuts or something
and named me after the desert.

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I like to hear
about it and all, I

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like to hear about
it and all, but I

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have begged them to change
my name on my knees.

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I'm not joking.

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But they just look at me.

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My mother says, just
like she does, oh, stop.

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It's a beautiful name,
Sonora, beautiful.

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Chapter three.

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And that's another
thing about Andrew.

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Guess what my father
does for a living?

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Could he be a
doctor or have a job

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in a shoe store or something?

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No, not my father.

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Andrew is a poet.

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I'm not joking.

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He spends his days writing
poems or thinking about poems.

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He also looks for the mailman.

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He gets letters about
putting poems in books.

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I'm not joking.

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Two days a week he works
out with his weights,

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so I told everybody at
school he was a boxer,

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and we have a gym at home.

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Honestly, I had to.

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I have asked my mother lots
of times to talk to him.

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Maybe he could get a job in
a supermarket or something,

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but she just looks
at me and says,

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just like she does, oh stop.

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Poetry and poets are
beautiful, Sonora, beautiful.

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Chapter four.

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And that's another
thing about this house.

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We do not have one regular room.

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I mean in other
people's houses you

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can tell right away what
every room is all about.

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But, oh no, not us.

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We first got to have
a room for poems.

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Then we have a room for
Andrew to lift weights in,

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and my mother to jump
rope and all that stuff.

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Then they have a room
for him to sleep in,

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but it's full of
plants and things,

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like a park or something.

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I'm not joking.

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Only the kitchen is a
regular room, almost.

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Honestly, no other
person in my whole school

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is in a house like this one.

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I have spoken to
them a million times

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about moving to a nice
house with regular rooms,

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and maybe a fence, and a dog.

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But my mother just
looks at me and says,

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just like she does, oh stop.

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Our home is beautiful,
Sonora, beautiful.

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Chapter five.

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And that's another
thing about beautiful.

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We go for walks a lot.

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Usually, I'm real
sleepy at first

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because Andrew chooses
the time a lot.

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He likes to choose dawn
or something like that.

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I'm not joking.

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It's crazy really.

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Me, and my mother,
and Andrew head out.

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I'm sleepy at first,
and I asked them,

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why do we have to go
for walks all the time?

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But then we get to the park
or some great place like that.

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We buy orange juice, and
sit-in the grass, and drink it.

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My mother gives
Andrew and me a kiss.

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Then we all hug each other, and
Andrew reads a really beautiful

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poem or something like that.

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We sit there a while.

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We smile and love each
other a whole lot,

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in the morning quiet
just like we do.

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We're a family, and it's
beautiful, beautiful.

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I'm not joking.

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