Chapter 2.
And that's another thing about Sonora.
Who ever heard of anybody named that?
There is not another person in my whole school
with a name like Sonora.
I'm not joking.
People are supposed to be named after flowers
or months or other people.
But oh, no, not me.
I had to be named after a desert.
I'm not joking.
There's this desert in Arizona where my mother first
saw Andrew--
he's my dad.
She was on a bus tour.
The bus stops someplace on the edge of this desert.
My mother looked out the window and saw this guy, Andrew.
They both went nuts or something and named me after the desert.
I like to hear about it--
I like to hear about it and all, but I
have begged them to change my name, on my knees.
I'm not joking.
But they just look at me.
My mother says just like she does, oh, stop.
It's a beautiful name, Sonora, beautiful.
Chapter 3.
And that's another thing about Andrew.
Guess what my father does for a living.
Could he be a doctor or have a job
in a shoe store or something?
No, not my father.
Andrew is a poet.
I'm not joking, a poet.
He spends his days writing poems or thinking about poems.
He also looks for the postman.
He gets letters about putting poems in books.
I'm not joking.
Two days a week, he works out with his weights,
so I told everybody at school he was a boxer
and we have a gym at home.
honestly, I had to.
I have asked my mother lots of times to talk to him.
Maybe he could get a job in a supermarket or something,
but she just looks at me and says
just like she does, oh, stop.
Poetry and poets like Andrew are beautiful, Sonora, beautiful.
Chapter 4.
And that's the thing about this house.
We don't have one regular room.
I mean, in other people's houses,
you can tell right away what every room is all about.
But oh, no, not us.
We first got to have one room for poems.
Then we have a room for Andrew to lift weights in
and my mother to jump rope and all that stuff.
Then they have a room for them to sleep
in but it's full of plants and things like a park
or something.
I'm not joking.
Only the kitchen is a regular room, almost.
Honestly, no other person in my whole school
lives in a house like this one.
I have spoken to them a million times
about moving to a nice house with regular rooms
and maybe a fence and a dog.
But my mother just looks at me and says
just like she does, oh, stop.
Our home is beautiful, Sonora, beautiful.
Chapter 5.
And that's another thing about beautiful.
We go for walks a lot.
Usually, I'm real sleepy at first
because Andrew chooses the time a lot.
He likes to choose dawn or something like that.
I'm not joking.
It's crazy really.
Me and my mother and Andrew head out.
I'm sleepy at first and I ask them,
why do we have to go for walks all the time?
But then we get to the park or some great place like that,
we buy orange juice and sit in the grass and drink it.
My mother gives Andrew and me a kiss, then
we all hug each other.
Andrew reads us a really beautiful poem
or something like that.
We sit there a while.
We smile and love each other a whole lot in the morning
quiet just like we do.
We're a family and it's beautiful, beautiful.
I'm not joking.
[APPLAUSE]