I’ve just spent 10 of the past 17 days in the company of children’s book writers and illustrators, first at the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Massachusetts, and then at a writing retreat in Taos. Not long before those, I was at the Albany Children’s Book Festival. All three venues reaffirmed the conclusion I come to time and again: that we have the best field imaginable with the best people in it. This includes all of the people involved in and passionate about literature for young people: the writers and artists, editors and designers, marketers and reps, teachers, librarians, and booksellers who dedicate their professional (and usually personal) lives to it.

Many times, I’ve spoken with writers and artists who don’t work with children’s books but have friends who do, and they comment on how unusually supportive children’s book folks are of one another. One gallery owner told me that while children’s book illustrators attend openings, routinely compliment one another’s work, and buy each other’s art, that almost never happens with artists in the adult realm. Apparently, this lack of support is also noticeable at readings. “At a fiction reading,” one author told me, “you rarely see other authors in attendance, much less enthusiastically cheering one another on. The adult literary world is cattier and so much more jealous.” This is in stark contrast to book events for kids and teens, which routinely include picture book, MG, or YA writing colleagues there to cheer on friends and acquaintances.

The contrast puts me in mind of the “crab effect,” which came up in discussion in Taos last week. The “crab effect” refers to the phenomenon whereby crabs in a bucket will actively seek to pull back one of their own who nearly escapes. It seems like such a waste of time and energy, to make the world smaller by begrudging someone else’s success. It’s human (and, evidently, crab, too), of course, especially since a creative person’s lot is to fend off insecurities and doubt, but I think children’s book people are particularly good at being able to do this without needing to bring others down. How nourishing it is to be in a creative field where people actively help one another, sharing their expertise and opinions, their encouragement and wisdom, and leaven it all with plenty of humor to help each other get through the bad times.

A relative of mine once said the best thing my mother ever taught him was that love is not a pie, that one piece to someone does not mean there’s less to give to the next person. She taught him that love begets love, expanding to accommodate everyone in its circle. I feel that way about the children’s book world: there is room enough for everyone with talent, dedication, passion, and perseverance. I believe that a good story will find its home, and that every work of excellence lifts the entire field along with it. I feel lucky to work in a field where, by and large, rather than begrudging another writer or artist’s success, people in our field truly do celebrate each other’s work. Perhaps it’s because people who create art for children are — by trade! — almost necessarily sensitive to other points of view, to tender feelings, to the desire to be one’s best self. I suppose children’s book folks would like to live up to young people’s expectations and hopes of us, and it makes us better human beings.

It’s not that there are no egos and petty insecurities among children’s book authors; of course there are. But those are much rarer than the deep and sincere appreciation most everyone in our field expresses for terrific books and their creators. Over and over again in these past two and a half weeks, I was reminded of this, in the generous workshops people gave at NESCBWI, in the camaraderie at the book festival, and in the deep connections made during a week’s writing, talking, sharing, and laughing.

So if you’re a children’s book person, pat yourself on the back and feeeeeel the love! And if you aren’t, you may want to consider switching fields.

 

I’ve come back to guest post on ShelfTalker because, like any bookseller, it is in my nature to want to share. When I find a great book I want to tell the world about it. And when I head off on an incredible book-related adventure? Well, I want to share that with you too!

My husband Gareth Hinds and I recently returned from a trip that we both believe to have been one of the single best either of us has ever taken. Anywhere. We spent 11 glorious days in Greece, on a Greek Study Tour organized by The Examined Life: Greek Studies in the Schools, in partnership with Children’s Literature New England, as part of a rich course they offer called Greece Online. GreeceOnline is an online graduate humanities program that “includes a course of study featuring webinars, videotaped lectures, and a study tour of Greece.” It’s “open to educators, school and public librarians, museum specialists, authors, illustrators, publishers, and editors, and all those working with young people, as well as individuals committed to the program’s mission to strengthen Greek studies in the schools and to raise public consciousness and knowledge of ancient (and modern) Greece.” In other words — people like most of you.

Gareth had been asked to participate in the course and travel as the “artist in residence” on this year’s trip, which was the enticement that got both of us on Greek soil for the first time. We had hoped to go when Gareth was doing his adaptation of The Odyssey, but there simply wasn’t time.

To be honest I’m glad we waited, because THIS TRIP — taken in the company of interesting, engaged, children’s-book-loving compatriots — was truly the way to go, which I should have known it would be. During my days at Wellesley Books I heard all about Greece Online from some of the teachers and librarians I worked with. They raved about the places they’d seen and things they’d learned, and told me that I too should take advantage of this opportunity. But had Gareth not been given such a generous invitation, I don’t know that I would have. And that means I’d have missed out on a remarkable exploration of history, mythology, culture, and beauty that I can barely begin to capture with my words, let alone my iPhone! Nevertheless, I’ll draw on both of those here and hope at least they give you a taste.

The locations featured on the trip vary some from year to year, but from what I gathered while talking to veterans (yes, there are people who have taken the course and trip MANY times!), the general structure of the trip is the same. Each group sees remarkable antiquities and stunning landscapes, as they visit at least some of the sites that were highlighted in the course lectures and readings.

This year’s trip began in Athens, with visits to the home and studio of Greek author and illustrator Sofia Zarabouka and the National Archeological Museum, which includes countless treasures like this bronze sculpture from the Hellenistic period, and artifacts unearthed in countless dig sites or famous shipwrecks.

From there, our group traveled to Corinth, where we marveled at the steep banks of the Corinth Canal, then on to Nafplio, a beautiful seaside town in the Peloponnese, where we stayed overnight, ate amazing food, and visited (briefly) the Fortress of Palamidi, where the line between the present and the past felt very thin. It was easy to stand at this height and imagine the world at the time of its construction. Which is how I felt at several stops on our trip.

Here let me pause and say the person who should REALLY be writing his post is our UTTERLY remarkable, truly wonderful, wow-did-we-all-love-her Greek tour guide, Mara Kanari. Mara traveled with us on most of our trip, and her wonderful sense of humor and sage insights truly made history come to life for all of us. She’s a historian, a scholar, and an expert on the best places to get Greek dessert — in other words, she knows everything of importance. Were she writing this post, it would be a lot more interesting. And funnier! But also much longer, so… let’s keep moving.

We visited the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidauros, where thousands of Ancient Greeks went to be healed and, while there, watched performances in a theater with unfathomably good acoustics. You could (and still can) stand in the center, speak in a normal voice, and be heard by people seated all the way at the back. (I know — I tried it.) The only other place I’ve been with acoustics that good was at our next stop on the tour, in the “beehive” tomb of Agamemnon. In the center of that space the faintest whisper sounded like a roar, from several feet away.

We visited Mycenae, the citadel supposedly built by cyclops, drove through an area of Greece known for its nine million (!!) olive trees, then traveled north to Arachova, a beautiful mountain town that’s popular with winter tourists, who come for the nearby ski resorts — and the scenery.

We visited Delphi, home of the Oracle, whose mountain views seem like they truly might hold the answers to all of your questions, then drove to Olympia, home of the ancient Olympic games, where we each walked the length of the original stadium (a dry river bed), thinking not just of the early athletes who’d set new records here, but of the athletes who’d been physically and emotionally scarred at this year’s Boston Marathon, the day before our arrival there.

We visited the island of Hydra, where cats outnumber people and donkeys perform the work that would elsewhere be done by motorized vehicles (which aren’t allowed), then went back to Athens where we went to (where else?) the Acropolis and visited (what else?) the Parthenon.

Our last three days were spent on the island of Santorini, an optional extension to the trip and one we were SO, SO glad we opted for. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a place this beautiful — even if it sits atop an active volcano that might well have caused the demise of Crete’s Minoan civilization AND spawned the legend of Atlantis? It’s hard to worry about ANYTHING (volcanoes or otherwise) when you’re in a place that looks like this…

And this is just a tiny taste of what the trip had to offer. There are a couple thousand more photos where these came from (seriously), and just as many memories, one favorite of which was convincing Gareth to let us tie him to the mast (or pretend to) as we sailed off to hike Santorini’s volcano. It seemed like a necessary addition to our odyssey.

So, that’s it — the remarkable trip we took as part of the Greece Online course, which I highly, HIGHLY recommend to anyone looking for a smart, memorable, bookish introduction to Greece. The course is full of wise minds and kid literati (next year’s lecturers include Ashley Bryan, Suzanne Fisher Staples, and K.T. Horning). The tour is a guided trip through Greece’s most interesting history, includes the added expertise of a writer or artist in residence (Gareth gave a lecture, taught a watercolor workshop, and sketched almost constantly) but it still feels like a relaxing vacation.

In keeping with blogging protocol I will add that no one is paying me to endorse this trip, and the trip itself was not a freebie for me. I paid, in full, for everything you’ve seen and heard about in this post, and I can honestly tell you it was worth every penny. I’m SO grateful to have had this experience, and to have shared it with an terrific, open-minded, fun-loving, insightful bunch of teachers, librarians, book reviewers, and the like. I made fast friends on this trip and wish I could go on more adventures with the same wonderful crew!

For more information about Greece Online, read the details on the Examined Life website. You can also reach out to Connie Carven through the info. on the site’s Contact Us page if you have questions or want to be notified when next year’s course and travel plans are finalized. I don’t know if I’ll make it on the 2014 trip, but I hope and predict that this will NOT be my last Greece Online adventure. I hope many of you will be inspired to go too! In the meantime, let me know what YOUR favorite spots in Greece have been, so that I can add those to my list of future destinations!

We tried. We really tried. Last year during the fourth quarter we attempted to sell e-readers and try to capture some of the folks who have switched to reading electronically. It was not a success.

We got the Kobo display from Ingram, through the ABA, and set it up. We did staff trainings on how it worked, but without a wireless connection at the store, we were hindered from the get-go about how to actually get the books on the reader. Honestly, as snazzy as the Kobo readers were, we just didn’t fall in love. I found myself feeling ambivalent about chatting them up to customers. I know other stores did well with them and I’m glad for them. I realized that getting people to buy an e-reader from me meant that in some way I might lose a customer.

My experience with people who get e-readers is after a very short while, they don’t come back to the bookstore. These same people are very used to getting their e-books from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and breaking that purchasing track is all but impossible to do. As much as I loathe Amazon and what it’s done to the book industry, their website has become the gold standard by which all other book sites are judged. And, none of our sites really measure up.

It was a sobering moment in February when we returned all of our unsold Kobo readers. I wasn’t sad about it. It just confirmed again that what we do well, very well, is sell physical books to people. We interact with customers. They don’t get a list of “If you like this…” on a screen, they get excited booksellers asking pointed and fun questions about what they’d like to read. I would miss this if all my customers bought books online from us exclusively. I’ve come to see that the reading market has really changed.

Customers who have Kindles we almost never see anymore for their own book purchases. Thank goodness these folks have kids and still believe in books for their children. So, while we cede most of the adult book purchases of these customers to the online world, we get almost all of their purchases for their kids. And that is enough. So, our continued focus will be on reading and stocking the best books we can.

As we head into the summer I have had an internal debate with myself about whether or not we should sell eReaders, and once again have decided to let the folks with e-readers go. After being in business for almost 17 years I can see no point in chasing down the readers who are using Kindles and Nooks. Instead of spending ad dollars and using website space and counter space at the store trying to get the e-readers to buy e-books from us, or to buy an e-reader from us, we will instead focus on what we do best: selling physical books. I feel like every indie bookstore should do this more. Yes, you can still buy e-books from our website, and some folks do, but people come to a bricks and mortar store for the experience. Every day I hear from customers how much they love our store. They love the colors of the walls, the richness and playfulness of the carpets in the picture book section, the chairs, the upholstered cubes scattered throughout the store, they love the smell of the books and then they notice the actual books. These and a hundred reasons are why people will continue to shop at indies.

We provide an experience that cannot be matched online. The minute stores forget that is when we’re doomed. We cannot go head to head with Amazon or B&N (although some would dispute this) in the online world, but we can make every customer want to come back and tell their friends about this great little bookstore in Vermont. Nothing is more fun than going to any store where the people are passionate about what they sell.

I do not begrudge people their e-readers. I think there are enough different types of readers to keep us all going. I believe indies just need to be smarter about how they spend their energy. In rural Vermont, we’ve decided to focus on live customers in the actual store and give them the best experience possible. When that last-minute birthday party invitation comes in, these folks are not logging on at Amazon Saturday morning, they are at the bookstore getting our advice and buying great books for the party.

We remember if someone else already bought that book for the same party and steer you towards a different book. Oh, and we wrap, with ribbon, for free.

I know I often use this space to complain about book covers. But I’m happy to report that today I want to sing the praises of a new series of books from Vintage Children’s Classics.These books originated in the U.K. as Random House books and they are quite simply, stunning.

This line of books has a myriad of titles, all of them good, and the covers are newly updated. What I particularly love is the clever use of the back cover. All the back covers have the standard book paragraph summary. What makes them different is the “Backstory” one-sentence summation of the book. For instance the “Backstory of The Railway Children is: Find out about steam trains and learn what it was really like to be a child in Edwardian times.”

On the surface this one sentence is not that big a deal, but it is extremely helpful to have just one sentence that kids can read. Frankly, if this sentence pulls them in, then they’ll just start reading. And then, if the backstory isn’t enough, they’ve added a real teaser on all the books. For instance on Five Children and It it says: Turn to page 11 to meet the Sand-fairy! Well, who’s not going to want to read to page 11? The teaser is accompanied by a lively, very kid-friendly illustration. All the books have this and I think it’s genius. It immediately engages the reader by bringing the story more to life and creating the element of surprise and suspense.

The front covers are actually fairly simple, but they’ve struck the right tone. There is a good balance between appealing to kids and not being child-like. I especially love the cover for Five Children & It.  Very cleverly, there are only four children on the cover, which I already find intriguing. (I know there is a baby, but readers won’t and that’s a neat thing.) The Sand-fairy is large and kind of creepy looking, but not scary. These covers just draw you in and the books themselves feel good in your hand, furthering their appeal.

Are there any covers out that you’ve seen lately that have struck you as quite good?

Mother’s Day can be a very quiet day at the bookstore. This is actually lovely, because the buildup to Mother’s Day just gets more and more intense as the week progresses. I’ve gone back through our records for the past six years to see what was purchased leading up to Mother’s Day and on the day itself and noticed a few interesting things.

- Men don’t really plan ahead. I don’t mean this in an offensive way at all. It’s just a statement. We had more men in here Friday and Saturday with slightly wide-eyed expressions, looking at books and then asking for help. They always seem surprised that Mother’s Day always falls in May.

- Men pay cash. This week we’ve had triple the number of cash sales than normal. This always strikes me as funny, because these guys use their credit cards during the holidays.

- Men sometimes doubt themselves for no reason. They approach staff saying, “She liked this book,” and they hold a paperback they’ve seen their wife read. This is the part of being a bookseller that I love. There is nothing I like more than helping a someone get the right book for an occasion that is clearly anxiety-provoking. Through speaking with the men, it’s clear they know what their wives like, but for some reason they start to question their taste even though they don’t need to.

- All the books were wrapped in the same paper. For some reason everyone picked the same birds in trees wrap yesterday. This is wrap we’ve had for a year, which we love, but it seldom gets chosen.

- Kids help their dads find cards. It’s actually very sweet to see a grown man checking in with a five-year-old about whether or not he’s picked the right card.

- And, on Monday, we will be full of women discreetly returning the books they got on Sunday, for things they wanted more.

 

Remember that lovely surprise ShelfTalker enjoyed recently when I posted about a customer sharing a special Richard Scarry book with his toddler and received a comment from the man’s son himself, artist Huck Scarry? In his comment, he asked for our address, and what arrived the other day from Austria was the happiest little piece of art, soon to grace the Flying Pig Bookstore’s walls. First, the envelope, which was almost as marvelous:

We are feeling very fortunate these days! What a lovely, lovely gift.

If you have a chance, try to track down some of Huck Scarry’s books. In addition to carrying on his father’s timeless work, Huck also has illustrated gorgeous sketchbooks of Tuscany and Venice, as well as intricately detailed tours of life on a fishing boat, travels in a hot-air balloon and a steam locomotive, and more. He’s such an accomplished watercolor and pen-and-ink artist!

Almost nothing delights us more than seeing how children’s book illustrators draw the flying pig. We have received some fabulous pigs through the years, and the aviator Mr. Frumble is a treasure.

It’s been a fabulous week! Enjoy your weekends, everyone.

Grinning ear to ear, your correspondent,
Elizabeth

I’m not sure if all booksellers do this, but I start planning my BEA (BookExpo America, the biggest annual industry event for publishers and booksellers) weeks in advance. It requires charts and folders, printouts of schedules of panels and signings and educational sessions and cocktail parties and lunches and dinners, and reams of backlist orders. It involves trying to find meeting times with PR folks and grabbing $8 Javits Center coffees with friends and colleagues in the teeny gaps of time left between all the other things. Oh, and then there’s the show floor, where thousands of fall titles will be on display. We need to spend some time there, too.

Usually, Josie and I divide and conquer at BEA, but she can’t make it this year, so I will be pulling double duty trying to schedule and absorb everything. BEA always inspires me, makes me want to read twice as fast, gets me revved up about books and bookselling no matter how challenging the climate in a rapidly changing industry. It’s an opportunity to see booksellers and author and illustrator pals from all over the country, and to meet new ones. It’s a chance to talk with knowledgeable, enthusiastic marketing folks at booths about the fall books they’re most excited about and plan author events at our store.

Things I’m excited about: the Association of Booksellers for Children hosts an annual silent auction of children’s book art. The generously donated pieces are glorious, and proceeds benefit the important work of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. This year, a rare Maurice Sendak piece is being auctioned off! You can preview all of the art here. The ABC, along with the Children’s Book Council, are sponsoring an author speed-dating session and author tea. The author breakfasts all sound fabulous, there’s a discussion between Kate DiCamillo and Cynthia Voigt I want to hear, and a “Picture Book Powerhouse” panel with Oliver Jeffers, Loren Long, John Bemelmans, Judy Schachner, and Jan Brett. Jon Scieszka, Brandon Mull, and Jack Gantos will be talking about writing for boys, and middle grade and YA editors will be presenting some of their favorite upcoming titles. My friend and esteemed bookselling colleague, Kenny Brechner, will be talking about the Common Core standards and how bookstores can work with schools to support them in thoughtful and fruitful ways. It’s a cornucopia, people!

As for the books themselves, for those of you who are planning to attend BEA, what ARCs are you excited to get your hands on? One of my staffers has already sent me her wish list. What’s on yours?

P.S. Back in 2008 when I was a wee guest blogger for ShelfTalker, I did a post from BEA about how swag-impaired I am. I bemoaned how some people can work the floor for two hours and reappear with rare loot, like jewel-encrusted totes or holographic ARCs or something, while I am the one limping around with blisters, developing a kyphotic hump from lugging around my bag of newly acquired catalogs that probably came in the mail back home. So this year I am determined to come home with one cool item. I am prepared to bribe for tips on likely booth numbers.

 

I ask this question just about every day. Customers come in seeking books for five to seven-year olds and we often ask “are they reading?” to clarify what section of the store to find books. It is not meant as judgment. I am very quick to let folks know that I really didn’t get the hang of reading until well into my eighth year, so there’s no shame in a seven-year-old who isn’t reading yet.

But there always is. I’m not really sure when it happened that it was expected that every six-year-old should already know how to read. The rush to be on grade-level, even if that grade is kindergarten, is rampant. More often than not the answer to the “is she reading?” is met with a very quick, “She precocious. She’s just finished the Harry Potter series.” Really? At six? Hmmm. I bet every bookseller hears this at least a hundred times a year.

Once I was helping a woman get a book for her son’s friend’s birthday. He was five. I was told he was a very precocious child. I asked if he was reading yet and she said, “Well, not yet.” And I countered with, “Well, then, he’s not that precocious.” I waited for her to get angry with my quip. Instead, she laughed and regrouped on the book idea, settling instead for a lovely Bill Peet book. If you’re not familiar with Bill Peet, go get some of his books.

From Wump World, The Whingdingdilly, Big Bad Bruce to The Caboose Who Got Loose and so many more great titles, his books are playfully illustrated long stories. There is nothing more fun than introducing a family to Bill Peet. His picture books are text-heavy, which is a good thing to get for the older child who isn’t reading yet, but feels too old for picture books. Oh, how I hate that moment when kids eschew picture books because they keep hearing that picture books are for babies. Handing a family a 48-page picture book is a gift. Peet’s books are long and that only makes them skew older. Let’s face it, not many three-year-olds can sit still that long.

But the reading question is one all booksellers grapple with every day. We have to ask about a child’s reading level. We are not doing it to judge, we are doing it find the perfect book. Honestly, I think we should steer away from reading levels, but we can’t. If a first grader is reading at first grade level why do some think that’s bad? The kid is in first grade! Let them read at that level and enjoy all the books written for first graders. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And I love it when people respond to the “Is he reading?” by answering, “No, he’s a regular five-year-old.” That response kind of puts in perspective, doesn’t it?

 

One of the things I like best about owning a bookstore is getting galleys in the mail. I never know what lovely discoveries await in the boxes. Sometimes, galleys come with things. Once books were wrapped in feathers (not my favorite galley mailing, as they seem to have disintegrated during shipping). Sometimes galleys come with chocolate, always a staff favorite. Usually though, the mailings are not useful, until the galley for Susan Beth Pfeffer’s The Shade of the Moon came last week from HMH.

I have to confess that the arrival of this galley actually caused me to do a little Snoopy dance. I just love this series, it started with one of my favorite books, Life As We Knew It. The concept is so simple: what would happen if the moon were struck by a meteor with such force it knocked it off its orbit? Lots of things happen. Things that make the reader want to stock a survival kit in the basement and ensure they have lots of firewood for the weather-related almost-nuclear winter that ensues.  All the books in the series are just as compelling as the first, and if the first 100 pages of the new book are any indication, this is going to be another winning entry.

The galley came in a small box with the book and a survival kit. At first I thought, really, a kit? And then I opened it. How practical is all of this stuff? I live alone in the country, and this is all very useful. The Clif bar is always helpful when I forget to get food, or eat breakfast. The whistle, well, that can scare bears, right? Matches are always helpful when the power goes out. The first aid kit is fabulous and chock full of things to help me when I do something silly, like burn myself with the matches during the blackout. Then there’s hand sanitizer which is also useful when there’s no power and there’s no water.

And the best part about this kit is the book, which I cannot put down.

You know how life is full of loose ends that never get tied up? Well, the other day, I received the most incredible letter, one that tied up a loose end from almost a decade ago — tied it up not just with parcel string, but with the most glorious big red bow, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Some backstory: several years ago when I was an as-yet-unpublished MFA student, I wrote a picture book manuscript about a little girl who uses her nearsightedness to solve crime. It was called Iris Spectacle: Accidental Private Eye, and I had a deep, amused attachment to it. It skewed old for a picture book, especially these days, with 1500 words and a main character who was eight or nine years old. Still, the story had a certain something; it won a blind picture book manuscript competition that Candlewick Press (not yet my publisher) sponsored through Vermont College. But Iris didn’t sell; at the time, I just wasn’t able to either trim the story to make it younger and drop the crime-solving plot, or expand it into a chapter book. So she sat in a file.

A while later, a librarian on a children’s literature listserv I subscribe to put out a call for books about girls who love their glasses. I sent her a copy of Iris to share with her patron. I never heard whether or not the child liked the story. In fact, I suspected that perhaps Iris hadn’t resonated with the young reader and the librarian just hadn’t had the heart to tell me. Over the years, from time to time, I wondered about the little girl with glasses — the only child who had ever read Iris.

Fast forward almost a decade to the other day, when the most spectacular, funny, beautifully written email arrived in my inbox from that little girl, now seventeen years old. Here is what she wrote (reproduced with her permission):

Hello!

I’m not expecting you to remember me at all, so don’t worry if you don’t. I’d just like to start with that. Anyway. When I was eight I had already spent the previous six years of my life unable to see more than one foot away and even then not very clearly. With some great technology and fabulous doctors I was given these enormous larger-than-harry-potter glasses that barely fit on my face. And I could see, which you think would get me leaping for joy at figuring out the sky is blue, and that there actually is a sky, and all sorts of things. But I was terrified. The world was too big to fathom and I’d rather just make myself a small nook and stay there forever. And then I learned to read. Reading was perfect because I could be in a giant world at the palm of my hands. And I was happy, which I mean was more of a confidence booster to my parents who had this weirdo kid depressed about seeing.

(I’m getting to the part where you come in soon, just hold on.)

Soon I started to love my glasses and being able to see so much that I would not take them off at bedtime until my eyes were closed tight. But as I kept reading with my new-found vision I ran into a problem. There were great children’s books about girls and how great they were and there were great books about boys with glasses and how great glasses were, but nobody seemed to have combined the two. Being an avid fan of both girls and glasses I begged my parents to get me books about girls who had glasses AND loved them, like me. Of course, my parents are not literature experts and had nothing for me, so I enlisted the help of one extraordinary world-class children’s librarian Charlotte Rabbit.

(Okay now I’m getting to your part.)

Mrs. Rabbit found me what was about half a dozen published works that to be honest, eight year old me found really really REALLLLLY REALLLLY boring, as only eight year olds can. So then Mrs. Rabbit sends me something that most definitely isn’t a book. It’s a bunch of white paper clipped together. She told me the book hadn’t been published but I got to read it early. This being the coolest thing that had ever happened in my eight years (besides the whole being able to see thing, which had gotten kind of old at this point) I read Iris Spectacle: Accidental Private Eye about three times in a row. And I loved it. And I brought it to school and bragged about my connections in the literary world and basically felt invincible. Hopefully you remember the book but if not, you wrote it. Anyway finally I had written proof of how cool girls with glasses are. And also a good starting point for my two year detective/spy phase, but that is a whole other story.

Now it is almost ten years later and after some handy dandy googling, I found you and I had to email you to thank you. Even though I guess the story never got published, that’s the least important thing in my mind. Because even if I was teased for having four eyes or I couldn’t make friends because glasses made me look weird, I had that book to read when I got home and know that glasses were good and the world knew it, even if the third grade didn’t know it. Now I am a rather confident high school junior President of a slew of clubs including theatre, and the leadership team, and captain of my ski team. I am a confident actor and very happy in my weird glasses-wearing skin. And I owe a lot of that to you. You and Iris Spectacle were my first friends who didn’t mind the glasses and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Anyway now my long lame-o story is over and I really appreciate that you took the time to read this. And I hope you know that your book, published, unpublished, whatever — it made a difference in my life. Which is all you need to take away from this. If you don’t remember eight year old me or Mrs. Rabbit or that manuscript I stole, it doesn’t matter. This is just a simple thank you.

Thank you.

–Sylvia

********

(Now back to me, Elizabeth.)

Isn’t Sylvia fabulous? This is a kid with moxie, and a way with language. I fully expect to host her at an author signing at the bookstore some day. And if that happens, I will still be glowing from this gift of a letter.

I can’t tell you what it means to an author to hear that her story has helped a young reader in some small way. This is the privilege of writing for children — the joy of connecting with the best people on the planet, through stories and humor and our best attempt to share our hearts on the page.

Thank YOU, Sylvia, for taking the time, all these years later, to find and write to a stranger who once sent a bunch of white paper to a librarian and a little girl far away, and wondered about her. And thank you, Universe, for tying up one of your loose ends.