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Why So Many Of You?

Will someone puh-leeze tell me why so many of you are visiting sparrowblog tonight? Not that I mind, but I'm just wondering how thousands of people are discovering my little blog ...

First Daughter White House Rules Teaser

Pub Date: January 24, 2008

How You Got Here

Just for fun, here are the top search phrases bringing you people here according to StatCounter:

• trevor upham
• ian klaus
• sarah gore bill lee
• sparrowblog
• jimmy mccain engaged
• henry hager, code name
• sarah huckabee
• teens political blogs
• bill lee sarah gore
• cate edwards
• kucinich daughter
• bridget mccain picture
• caroline giuliani
• cate edwards blog
• tagg romney

And here's the cover of the next book featuring the one and only me, Sameera Righton — First Daughter: White House Rules, scheduled for release from Dutton Books on January 24, 2008. (You gave us feedback on the artwork, remember? And you also helped pick the title.)

On The Road Again

Summer's here, school's over, and we're heading off tomorrow to zig-zag across America and back (with an extended stop at my favorite Ohio dairy farm), so I'll be tracking the campaign from wireless access spots in small towns. Who knows? If you spot a desi girl hunched over a laptop drinking coffee in the next booth, it just might be me. I'll post when I can. Peace be with you. Sparrow.

Slate Freaks Out

The people at Slate figure I'm some kind of Romney-aholic. Maybe they should browse through more of my posts -- they might discover that this purple-ish blog's mission is to dish on all the candidates' kids (and hopefully get teens engaged in the campaign). Mrs. Edwards figured that out when she commented here. I do like reading the Five Brothers' blog -- I've been open about who I am on and off-list because the Romney family has a great sense of humor. And, yes, I'm figuring a Romney-Rice vs. Obama-Clinton race in '08 would bring out lots of voters, and then we get to show off our country's democracy to the rest of the planet.

Publishers Weekly Likes Me!

Here's their rave (blush):

" ... Sameera is an intelligent, witty and prepossessed heroine (and an inveterate blogger, with an actual site maintained at www.sparrowblog.com). Though the story tends toward the lighthearted, teens should enjoy this peek at the behind-the-scenes finessing that goes on in modern politics."

A Safe Place

Now that the stampede of visitors checking out Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards' comment on Sparrowblog has slowed to a trickle, I'm still in a bit of shock. But SO glad that I decided early on that this site would be a place where the First Kid wannabes would never leave feeling trashed. Of course, back then I was sure none of them would stop by, but now I'm going to be even more careful...

Sparrow's Site Stats Go Wild!

Thanks to a comment by Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards setting things straight about her daughter Emma Claire's joke, Wonkette, TPM Cafe, Time-CNN, ABC, and others linked to yesterday's Sparrowblog post. Lesson learned: these days, the candidates (and their families) are skimming blogs just like everyone else, which means they're listening to even small voices like mine.

Photo Source: Steve Garfield

Have I Got A Book For Tagg Romney!

Over at the fabulous Five Brothers' Blog where they let you comment freely and wildly, oldest brother Tagg asks for reading suggestions during an upcoming four-week trip campaigning for his Dad. I, of course, offered the book featuring MOI, which released yesterday. Hey, let's blitz the site with recommendations for First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover, okay? It's your turn. Scat. Go. Head over there right now. See ya' tomorrow.

(Hey, Slate readers, welcome to Sparrowblog. Here's my rebuttal!)

My Amazing Blog Tour

Yes, it's true, I'm going on tour! You can track me here:

Monday, 6/11: 5 Minutes For Mom and Jennifer Snapshot
Tuesday, 6/12: Big A little a
Wednesday, 6/13: Semicolon
Thursday, 6/14: Jen Robinson's Book Page
Friday, 6/15: Little Willow
Monday, 6/18: Sara's Hold Shelf

What Happened to HER Sequel?

The Doublemint Twins were writing the script for First Daughter 2 in 2000 but it never came out. Hey, Lions Gate, my story's available if you need a new one. And my Book No. 2 is definitely coming out in January 2008 -- First Daughter: White House Rules. Here are some of the covers we're playing around with. Why not vote on which one you like best?

Which Cover?

Sparrow in Green
Sparrow in Red

Book Trailer: First Daughter

Get the YouTube version here.

First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover

Chapter One

Excerpted from First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (Dutton, June 2007)

© Copyright 2007 by Mitali Perkins

Eight buff, gorgeous guys from six different countries hoisted Sameera Righton onto their shoulders and paraded her along the river in front of the cheering crowd, chanting “SPARROW! SPARROW!” Then they tossed her into the water and then jubilantly hurled themselves in after her, cavorting to the music of the jazz band.

As her multicultural entourage of hunks splashed around her, Sameera wished someone could press a celestial pause button so she could savor the moment. She was celebrating much more than a first-place finish in a race. For months, she’d been griping long-distance to her cousin-slash-best-friend Miranda about staying in Europe to finish out her sophomore year. With Dad’s presidential campaign gathering steam in the States, her parents had become jet-setting celebrities traveling back and forth between the continents, and she’d been stuck in Brussels trying to grasp the mystery of isosceles triangles.

But now she was done. Done with school, done with the newspaper, done with packing and organizing. And last but not least, she’d coxed her team to this big end-of-the-season win. She was ready to join the campaign.

Her request for a heavenly pause button was denied. The band stopped playing; the crowd began to disperse. A dozen or so girls ranging from willow-thin to voluptuous beckoned to their soaked boyfriends. The guys obeyed, of course, but not one of them climbed out before throwing his arms around Sameera, holding her close, and kissing her good-bye.

“I’ll come up to visit you en La Casa Blanca next summer,” Adorable Antonio, the son of a Mexican banker, promised extravagantly. His girlfriend was the tall, toned Eritrean stunner tapping one stiletto on the shore who made Sameera feel like an oompa-loompa.

“Get one of those fancy guest rooms ready for me, too,” said Delectable David, the only other American on the team. “I hear they have an amazing movie theater inside the place.”

“Dad could lose, you know,” Sameera reminded her teammates, looking around at their affectionate faces.

After the California primary, which was only a few days away and predicted to be a slam-dunk for Dad, he’d have enough votes to win the Republican nomination. Then, in the November nationwide election, if he beat the Democratic candidate, James Righton would become the next President of the United States of America.

“No chance of him losing,” said Jacques, their coach, sighing. “Looks like he’s going all the way to the top, great for him, lousy for us. Where are we going to find a cox as good as you, Sparrow?”

“I wasn’t good when you recruited me,” Sameera told him, remembering that day in the fall of her freshman year when he’d asked her to join the team. “You just picked me because I was the smallest freshman in sight. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”

It had taken only one practice for Sameera to realize that she couldn’t sit like a lump and expect her backwards-facing team to get to the finish line safely. She started using the inflections of her voice and encouragement to get them to go where she wanted. She practiced steering and shifting her weight, mastered a cox box, and made charts about the strengths and weaknesses of each her teammates. And she learned how to issue commands from her gut, not her throat, which made all the difference.

“Hey, Coach,” Antonio said. “How’d you know a little bird like Sparrow could shout con mucha fuerza?”

Sameera made a face at the “little bird” comment, and Jacques ruffled her hair affectionately. “I could tell she had a bossy streak a mile wide. Stay in touch, sweetheart. I’m off to say goodbye to your mother.” He tucked in his shirt and surreptitiously sniffed an armpit as he headed for the parking lot, where Sameera’s Mom was leaning against the long, black U.S. Ambassador’s car.

“You haven’t blogged in days, Sparrow,” complained Amazing Ahmed, the muscular, soft-spoken son of the Pakistani Ambassador to NATO. “I’ve been checking in regularly and there’s nothing since your last post.”

“I know. I’ve been so busy. But I promised to keep you guys up to speed, didn’t I?”

Magnificent Matteo was the last to leave. “We will be cheering for you,” he whispered, kissing her on the lips right in front of his “novia,” who was also a Spaniard.

Sameera tried to keep her heart rate normal; a quick lip-on-lip kiss between friends was nothing in Europe. But did all of her teammates have to be so … beautiful? And couldn’t their girlfriends at least pretend to be threatened by their boyfriends’ obvious affection for the team coxswain?

She watched them saunter off into the sunset pair by pair, almost expecting credits to roll across the orange sky like they did in one of Miranda’s favorite chick flicks. Sameera preferred old black-and-white romances like Roman Holiday and Casablanca or romping old-style musicals like My Fair Lady. She and Miranda were both avid fans of makeover shows, getting teary-eyed together as they watched home, heart, or hair re-dos on the tube. Trivial pursuits compared to parents out saving the world, maybe, but the girls loved them.

The scene involving Sameera’s mother and Jacques looked like it belonged either in a chick flick or a makeover show, with Jacques bending low to kiss Mom’s manicured, red-tipped hand. Sameera still wasn’t used to the glam “after” version of her normally makeup-free, hairy-underarmed, out-of-shape, jeans-clad, tennis-shoe-wearing human-rights-activist mother. But Dad’s campaign staff had gathered an expensive team of three last-name-free Hollywood experts to take Mom in hand at the start of the campaign season last year. Thanks to “Camera-Ready Constance” (hair and makeup), “Vanessa: Stylist For The Stars” (fashion), and “Manuel: He Moves You,” (a personal trainer licensed to pummel famous middle-aged bodies into shape), Elizabeth Campbell Righton had achieved a look that had been labeled “twenty-first century First Lady.” She was tall, blonde, thin, and elegant in tailored suits, lip-liner, and French perfume, and guys of all ages worried about their body odor in her presence.

Sameera yanked off her t-shirt to squeeze the water out of it – an out-of-character move that she usually reserved for the privacy of the girls’ locker room. She never felt comfortable racing in a sports bra like some of the other coxswains. Sadly, nobody paid any attention to her brazen act. Hello? A girl just peeled off a wet t-shirt. But this was Europe, where a shirtless woman in June was as common as a pair of golden arches in an American mini-mall. Besides, a petite, flat-chested girl shaped like a twelve-year-old boy didn’t show up on the “sexy” radar anywhere on the planet. They probably think my sports bra’s an extra-small undershirt.

But all that was about to change. As soon as Sameera arrived in L.A., Vanessa and Constance were going to descend on her (Manuel-He-Moves-You focused only on bodies over thirty). The breaking news item on her myplace.com site this week:

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is upon us. I’m going to bring my friends (that’s you!) along for the amazing, never-been-reported-on-before journey of a President’s Daughter In The Making. Your good old blogger buddy is about to morph from drab to glam, from drudge to diva, from unknown spectator to talked-about celeb. Stay tuned for the inside scoop.

She always ended her blog posts with the same tagline:

Comments? Remember, keep them short, clean, and to the point. Peace be with you. Sparrow.