You were the boy in 1996 who had never spent a night away from home. In fact, you were terrified. And then you met a young man who called himself "Hercules." He liked you, and he wanted you to succeed. Meals were especially hard. It's tough to enjoy spaghetti with tears streaming down your face and your stomach in a knot, so Hercules spent every meal that week with you, eating in a private spot so others wouldn't see you cry. On Tuesday you were ready to give up, but by Friday you had two new things: a friend, and the knowledge that you had made it.

You were the girl in 1989 who was new to your school and painfully shy. Out on a flood plain of the Sandy River, your classmates were noisily searching for life in a necklace of ponds while you stood by, quietly watching them. Chinook, the instructor, noticed this and asked if he could show you "something really cool." You spent the next thirty minutes collecting caddisflies, marveling at how they use tiny pebbles to build themselves a protective shell even as you began to break out of your own. Years later you would take the chance to share something cool with another child.

Though my watercolors of birds dressed in fabulous footwear have been around for a while, they just recently were featured on I'm So Portland. 

I love the description given by the I'm So Portland site for my collection as a whole. I certainly think it does my little red-shoed friends justice.

Stargazing for Beginners:
How to Find Your Way
Around the Night Sky

It can be tough for beginners to learn the constellations. Standard star charts con- tain so much information that they are confusing, and even a simple planisphere can be intimidating to people not familiar with the tool. Those who haven't a clue about right ascension or relative magnitude can still learn the stars with this marvelous new guide from Lafcadio Adams.

Adams is a teacher in the Portland, Ore., area, and astronomy is her favorite subject—she has had a scale model of the solar sys- tem in her living room "since way back when Pluto was a plan- et." Adams wrote Stargazing for Beginners as a series of six les- sons, each taking a look at a different part of the Northern Hemisphere sky. She recommends taking them in order, as each builds upon the learning of the preceding lesson. Each lesson features numerous clear, simple illustrations and photos that help the reader identify the constellations, using the familiar to point the way to the more obscure nearby.

Adams published the guide as an e-book for practical reasons. She figures a smart-phone or tablet device is easy to haul out- side with you on a clear night. Set it on night-vision mode, fire up Stargazing for Beginners, and find out what you're looking at. If you're old-school, you can get the PDF version and print it out. The guide is appropriate for most ages, understandable by bud- ding stargazers as young as 7 or 8, but appealing to adults, too.

If you know Boötes or Lepus already you should proceed to a more in-depth sky guide. But beginning stargazers should grab a copy of Adams' book and start looking up.