In case you didn’t know it, today, August 11th, a really great picture book goes on sale. It’s a multi-cultural rhyming call and response book that asks the very important question: How Do You Wokka-Wokka? and it was written by none other than ShelfTalker’s Elizabeth Bluemle and my partner. Okay, I’m so proud I’m practially bursting, but even if hadn’t owned a store with her for thirteen years, I’d still love, love this book.

Already the book has garnered excellent reviews, including a starred review from School Library Journal.

This is a fun, fun, book. And our nephew, Will, was the inspiration for it. He was playing with his mom when he was two and a half (he’s ten now), and kept asking her (and everyone else in hearing distance), "How do you wokka-wokka?" No one could figure out what he meant, so finally his mom played along and made up a silly dance move. Little Will got the whole family dancing together in their own unique ways, and the seed of the book idea was planted.

This is a lively, infectiously rhyming book. The response at the story hour done on Cape Cod was delightful. Lots of giggling children trying to find their own Wokka.  If you happen to be in Shelburne, Vt., this Saturday, come to our block party release event with free hot dogs, cake, face painting, and African drumming for all the kids.

I couldn’t be happier for Elizabeth, or my store’s bottom line, which is going to have a nice bump this month.

God bless ’em, the customers who want to be helpful. The ones who think it’s okay to follow you to the back room to look for their book. The ones who walk so closely so behind you that if you stop they slam right into you. Don’t get me wrong, I think being helpful is a lovely trait in most areas of life, but for some reason at the bookstore, it can just be trying and can ultimately create more work for the bookseller. 

Let’s start with the little kids. They just want to put things back. This is an excellent impulse, but unless they can understand what alphabetical order actually is, I think the books are better left in a tidy stack. I can always tell there’s been a helpful toddler in the store. All the books on the bottom shelves have been shoved back willy nilly. I’ll often hear a parent say, "You have to put that one back before you can look at another one." Well, the problem with this is the kid has no idea that his truck book goes back in the truck section, not on the bottom shelf of parenting, where he happens to be sitting at the moment. So what happens is, later in the day when I’m looking for the truck book and it’s nowhere to be seen in the section it belongs in, I expand my search, often calling for help from staff. Of course, we don’t find the book until it’s too late and we’ve already ordered another one or lost the sale entirely.

And sometimes kids, especially the little ones, the adorable ones, can shove a book back on the shelf, ripping or tearing the jacket, like nobody’s business. This all brings me back to the tidy stack. Yes, it seems like a lot of books, and I think this is what customers react to: it’s a lot of books someone has to put back. They stack up twenty books and realize this is a lot of work for someone to put back. But trust me when I say, I’d much rather have an enormous stack than books put back incorrectly and brutally.

The older kids and adults, the ones who do know alphabetical order, honestly have no excuse for not putting a book back right where they found. I love it when a customer who found a book perfectly well on her own, hands it to me and says, "I wouldn’t want to be put it back in the wrong place." I appreciate that, but seriously, you found the book, is it too hard remember that Risk Pool by Richard Russo would be under R in the fiction section? Now, if I’ve handed you a stack of books to look at I hardly expect you to run around and reshelve them, that’s crazy, because when I’m on a roll recommending, I pull from lots of sections.

I guess with the plethora of tourists we get during the summer, I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle every day: I just can’t find anything. Adult hardcovers are being placed on top of middle novels, travel books wind up in Science Fiction, cartoon collections are left in the bathroom (seriously). Please, unless you’re a librarian, just make me my tidy stack and I’ll be thrilled.

I will say of my regular customers who like to help, they do it in serious and meaningful ways. One winter day last year we were a little late to get to the store because of snow. We arrived and found one of our very hearty senior citizen customers shoveling the walkway for us. Now, that’s the kind of help I need.

In recent months I have fallen madly in love with one particular audiobook series that I am currently praising above all others. There are so far six books in the Bloody Jack series written by Maine author L.A. Meyer, with the seventh book (Rapture of the Deep) coming this August. I recently finished listening to the audio edition of the series’ fifth book (Mississippi Jack) produced by Listen and Live Audio and am now chomping at the bit for the audio of the sixth to arrive so my fun can continue.

Lest you think I’m the only one enamored with the experience of listening to these books, consider that the second in the series, The Curse of the Blue Tattoo, is becoming one of the best-decorated audio books out there, having already received three Audie Awards (best solo female narrator, distinguished achievement in production, and best book for teens), an Odyssey Honor Award, and an Earphone Award from Audiofile magazine, to name just a few. Read by the remarkably talented Katherine Kellgren, each book in this series is a rollicking adventure starring one Mary "Jacky" Faber, who is one of the pluckiest and most entertaining girls I’ve encountered in fiction — a girl, I might add, who is not at ALL too ladylike as to be unappealing to boys. (Just ask my fiancé, who is also greatly enjoying this series.) Jacky is clever, resourceful, charming, funny, talented in countless ways, and completely fallible. Try as she might, she cannot resist the temptations of a good mystery, a profitable scam, or (it’s true) a rogueish and handsome young man, affording Mr. Meyer ample opportunities for some infuriatingly fun storytelling — the kind that finds readers shaking their heads and grinning with anticipation: "Oh, dear. Here she goes again… How WILL she get herself out of this one??"

In the first book of her adventures, Bloody Jack (also the recipient of an Odyssey Honor Award and an Audie Award), Jacky, whose early years are spent begging on the streets of London, dons boys’ clothing and lands a job as a ship’s boy for a Royal Navy ship. While on board the H.M.S. Dolphin she has numerous nautical adventures, each of them punctuated with a degree of historical detail that both enriches the story and educates landlubbers about life on the high seas.

In the second account of Jacky’s adventures, The Curse of the Blue Tattoo, the city of Boston and social expectations for "proper ladies" take center stage, as Jacky is enrolled at the Lawson Peabody School for Girls, located in Beacon Hill. I, for one, feel fully prepared now to offer tours of "Jacky Faber’s Boston," having learned so much about the various bits and pieces of the city from reading this book: "Ah, there’s where Jacky rode her horse through the Common, going much faster than befitted a proper lady. Ah, there’s where Jacky spent many a night singing and dancing in the tavern known as The Pig and Whistle, unbeknowst to Headmistress Pim…" (And so on.) You can see a map of the Boston locations Jacky visited (or frequented) in 1803 on L.M. Meyer’s web site.

Books 3, 4, and 5 continue Jacky’s adventures, with her returning, in each book, to some type of boat, on some body of water, in some piece of the world. Book 6 finds her "behind enemy lines" in Paris, where I know she is going to find plenty of ways to get into trouble, and I’ll find plenty of reasons to love her all the more. And as for Book 7, well… we shall soon see!

Despite her faults (and perhaps because of them), Jacky herself provides a positive role model, as do a great number of the men and women in her very diverse coterie. From lovable pickpockets to truly terrible sailors, there are so many characters to love in these books, and so much to say about their "human" qualities and depictions here as three-dimensional. An eighth grade girl I recently introduced to this series proclaimed two weeks ago that the number one object of Jacky’s affections was "positively dreamy" — a statement I am curious to see if she rescinds once she has read far enough to find that he, too, is very much human and (darn him!) very much a boy. Will the fact that he’s believable make him any less dreamy in her eyes? We shall soon see.

I personally love the man who becomes Jacky’s attendant or "butler" of a sort. He is upstanding, respectable, and perfectly charmed by Jacky’s wily ways, even as he does his best to protect her from them. The fact that he’s so steadfast makes me like him immensely. The fact that he is a homosexual makes me rejoice in his very presence on these pages. (What?? A gay person in historical fiction??) My hat’s off to L. M. Meyer for acknowledging there were gay people in history, some of them likeable, some not. While he’s tossing that bit of reality into the mix, he opens unexpected windows onto other historical truths less often acknowledged in books for young readers: Yes, there were church-goers of bad moral character and prostitutes of good. Yes, some black people happily profited from the slave trade. Yes, the world is home to pick-pockets with hearts of gold and pirates a girl can’t help but love. These are stories, in other words, that feature actual PEOPLE, cut from a wide variety of cloths and not just shaped by stereotypes. How delightfully refreshing!

Because Jackie finds herself in occasional "heavy petting" situations and is, in at least once instance, endangered by a man wanting a good deal more than that, this series is probably best for ages 13 and up. I think it would be just fine for seventh graders, or mature sixth graders who don’t have especially squeamish parents, and it is certainly all right for adults, who I may find themselves enjoying it every bit as much as their teenagers — and possibly even more!

To return or not to return? This is an age-old question in the book business. I’ve always thought that doing returns was good for me and the bottom line, but I wanted to test that, so I set about doing some math to answer this question. Returning books is more complex than getting a credit back at the same discount you purchased the books.

My store is not big enough to have a dedicated shipping and receiving person (oh, wouldn’t that be heaven), so returns tend to get processed by two of us, in spurts. Often these spurts are during slow times, but with a small staff, having one person doing returns means there’s one fewer person on the floor selling books. There is a process to returns: you’ve got to pull books, organize the books, enter the books to be returned in the computer system, pack up the books and then ship the books. This is not a simple process. Often books need to be checked in a books-in-print database to make sure they can still be returned. 

And it’s shockingly easy to make mistakes. Publishers change all the time. When I last made Hyperion returns they could go in the box for Hachette — now, no. I got many books from my last Hachette returned because I forgot that Hyperion is now with Harper. And really, there’s nothing that sinks my heart faster than getting a box of "unacceptable returns" back from a publisher. It means I’ve paid for shipping twice: once to them and once for them to send the offending books back. There is nothing more irritating than getting a return back; it’s like an ex-boyfriend who just won’t stop calling. If you’re rushing to get the boxes ready for UPS or Fed Ex, it’s very easy to accidentally put the wrong label on a box, which means two boxes are going to come back to you.

Human error aside, shipping costs and staff time need to be factored in. A 37-pound box shipped from Vermont to Random House in Indiana costs between $16.22 via United States Post Office media mail, or $17.35 via UPS Ground. Now the the small savings by going to the post office needs to be balanced against the ease of having the package picked up by UPS. I generally don’t have enough returns to qualify for the bulk savings that are available through the UPS or Fed Ex. My shipping costs for my average box work out to be about 5%. So my 46% discount from the publishers tends to be more like 41% before I factor in staff time. Let’s use the same box we shipped to Random House and figure out what staff time costs with a $10 an hour staffer. If it takes her one hour per box, that’s an additional 2.5% out of that box going back to the publishers. Now my return is more like 38.5%. So I’m actually losing money, and a fair amount of it. 

Returns are good for several reasons. A credit balance at the publisher can help pay your bill when cash flow is tight. And returns can free up shelf space for books that are actually going to sell. However, after really crunching the numbers, I think having a sale might be a better way to go. Mark the offending books at 30% off and you’re still making 16%, which seems a lot better than losing money in this economy. And: sale books are non-returnable.

I’m curious what other booksellers do about returns. If you’ve got some great ideas/strategies, please share.

Literary little brothers are a special breed. They may act as wide-eyed witnesses to the shenanigans of older siblings (like John in The Great Brain books; see note below), or may be the main mischief-makers themselves (Judy Blume’s indomitable Fudge). Sometimes they try to compete with the older sibling (Julian’s little brother, Huey, in Ann Cameron’s chapter book series); sometimes, they find a way to forge their own identity quite independently (Judy Moody’s little bro, Stink; Buster in Richard Peck’s Fair Weather).

There is a "little brother" that has managed to do all four of these things at once. This little bro is not a human character, however; he is a literary contest, the Lyttle-Lytton.

First, meet his big brother. Most book lovers are already aware of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which has been challenging contestants since 1982 to "compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels." The contest was perpetrated by San Jose University English professor Scott Rice, who named it after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, the turgid 19th-century author who gave us the familiar opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night," among other phrases (like "the great unwashed"). In its 27 years of existence, the contest has engendered some truly hilarious and intentionally execrous results.

The entries tend to ramble, much like these blog posts, taking detours that may or may not lead somewhere coherent, ending with an amusing clunker, twist, or non sequitur. For example:

"Professor Frobisher couldn’t believe he had missed seeing it for so long—it was, after all, right there under his nose—but in all his years of research into the intricate and mysterious ways of the universe, he had never noticed that the freckles on his upper lip, just below and to the left of the nostril, partially hidden until now by a hairy mole he had just removed a week before, exactly matched the pattern of the stars in the Pleiades, down to the angry red zit that had just popped up where he and his colleagues had only today discovered an exploding nova."  —Ray C. Gainey, Indianapolis, Indiana (1989 winner)

Sometimes they start strong and trail off into (again, intentional) total irrelevance:

"The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant for those who hadn’t heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn’t reacting yet to let you know." —Patricia E. Presutti, Lewiston, New York (1986 winner)

And this: "They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently. —Mariann Simms, Wetumpka, Ala. (2003 winner)

I look forward to the Bulwer-Lytton entries every year. They are clever, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and wonderfully wrought. 

The contest is everything a bad sentence contest should be. Or is it? In 2001, upstart bad-sentence-seeker (and interactive fiction award winner) Adam Cadre created the Lyttle-Lytton Contest as a response to his quibble with the length of the Bulwer-Lytton entries. "I say, bleah," he boldly asserts on his website. "Brevity is the soul of wit, and this goes on and on and on." In contrast, Cadre limits his contestants to just 25 words—plenty of space, he maintains, in which to be brilliantly bad.

On his website, Cadre warns entrants, "I will begin with my now-traditional exhortation about what this contest is not. It is not a "funniest sentence" contest. It’s relatively easy [sic] make people laugh with you, if you try…. Again, what this contest is going for is a simulation of unintentional comedy — we should be laughing at your entry, not with it. This is hard to do on purpose." The entries can’t be tongue-in-cheek, sly, clever, or ironic. One should not be able to detect a gleam in the author’s eye or a spark in the author’s neurons, the ones that govern the part of the brain that makes good sentences. (Darn, that last sentence exceeded the 25-word limit, but I was going for the spirit of the Lyttle-Lytton there.) The Lyttle-Lytton "is an exercise in intentional unintentional comedy. Anything that sounds like a deliberate joke on the part of the author is therefore not what this contest is looking for."

Ideally, one should feel as though the author is unaware that his or her sentence is bad. There is something extra delicious, if spartan, about this requirement. It is hard work.

Instead of the acrobatics of Bulwer-Lytton entries like the examples above, Cadre looks for sentences like this: "’Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating.’" He succinctly articulates why the sentence is so bad: "The non-action of ‘stood,’ the vagueness of ‘there,’ the involuntary process of ovulation treated as an activity, the inappropriateness of mentioning the volume of that non-activity, the uncomfortably gynecological detail of mentioning it at all — all combine to make a cringeworthy sentence. And since it’s only five words long, its impact is instant; you don’t have readers slogging through clause after clause after clause."

While one would rarely find sentences like the Bulwer-Lytton winners in any published novel, Lyttle-Lytton winners sound as if they’re drawn straight from bad, bad novels and awkward nonfiction that somehow made it into print. In fact, alert readers who come upon qualifyingly bad first sentences in published books are welcome to send in such examples (with citations, of course), which are judged in a separate category.

Here are some of the Lyttle-Lytton past winners:

2009— "The mighty frigate Indestructible rounded the Horn of Africa and lurched east’ard." —Pete Wirtala

2005 – "John, surfing, said to his mother, surfing beside him, ‘How do you like surfing?’" —Eric Davis

2002 – "The pain wouldn’t stop, and Vern still had three cats left." —Andrew Davis

2001 – "Turning, I mentally digested all of what you, the reader, are about to find out heartbrea
ki
ngly." Top Changwatchai

I’m not certain I can’t detect some tongue-in-cheek sensibility in these, especially in the Vern entry, but I respect the goal. The 2001 winner might be my favorite, because it’s so earnestly awful, and ends with an awkwardly placed adverb. But "lurching east’ard" kills me every time I read it. *snort*

It is a dark and stormy night, dear readers, and my pillow awaits me like a soft marshmallow, if the marshmallow were huge and slightly flattened, with wrinkles where a face had pressed into it, and slightly redolent of dog, though that isn’t really true since the dogs have to stay at the foot of the bed ever since Ink dropped a dead mouse on the comforter.

So, Lyttle-Lytton, little fist-clenched brother, relax. There’s plenty of room in this world (don’t we all know it) for bad sentences and the contests that reward them.

For those of you who were hoping for an actual list of little brothers in fiction, I invite readers to fill the comments section with them! (As for the Great Brain note I alluded to earlier: this is one of the best middle-grade series of all time, yet only a few volumes are currently available even though every single parent, teacher, and kid who has ever read it, loves it. Hi, Penguin!)

Take a child about to cry over being told that he can’t get a book — tears are brewing, a face is getting set in a pout, perhaps a foot is close to hitting the floor with force. How can you save this moment from turning into a scene? Well, I want to share a tip that we use at the Flying Pig to help children feel heard and to help stave off these unpleasant temper tantrums. It’s called a Wish List. Whenever a child, or even an adult, comes in and can’t get all the books that they want, we encourage them to write it down for us to file.

There is something gratifying to know that what you want has been written down somewhere, that your wish has been recorded. Just yesterday a girl all of about seven asked to see her wish list. I got the binder out and much to her mother’s surprise, I produced her wish list from last Christmas. The only book on the list was the Simpsons’ Tree House of Horror. The mom started laughing and said, "Did you make that list with Daddy?" The girl didn’t want the book any more, but was thrilled that we still had the list on file.

The Wish List book serves as a reminder for relatives of books that would make great gifts. We date all the entries in the wish lists, so it’s a real record of how a child has grown as a reader and how tastes have changed, or stayed true. There is something tangible about writing things down that children understand. Their wishes have not been forgotten and they can regroup and leave the store feeling better.

This is a simple thing to do to help customers and it’s really fun to watch kids delight in putting things on their list. The best part is when they come in months later and take their list and go around the store and make piles. And add more books to their list for the next time.

Sometimes, the bookstore is a confessional of sorts. Last fall I had two moms in the store, giggling over the "how to talk to your child about sex" section. They were far worse than any kid would be. "Erections," one wondered, "don’t they just happen?" Well, no actually, spongy tissue allows them to happen, I explained, trying very hard not to just start laughing. These women, these married women with sons, had never heard of spongy tissue. "How are you going to have the talk?" I asked. They blushed and said they had no idea.

This conversation happens with shocking regularity in my store. I feel bad for these kids whose moms and dads think the sex talk is uncomfortable or have no real clue how to start. I point them in the direction of my Life Issues section. I suggest that they start with an easy refresher book. I have my six or seven books that I find invaluable to help parents and kids, understand the joy, the agony and the unknown of talking to your child about sex and puberty.

Regardless of what the book is, the best advice always seems to be to just nonchalantly leave the book on the coffee table. Within a week, the book will find its way to the right child’s room and then the questions start. Parents, especially parents like the moms above, would do well to get the same books as their kids, so they have the same frame of reference. It’s funny: The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls, from American Girl Library, is almost always purchased by the good customer who confides that her daughter is carrying an odor for the first time. Many girls have been known to secret this book away while simultaneously asking for better shampoo and deodorant. American Girl added a new book to this series with Is This Normal?: Girls’ Questions, Answered by the Editors of The Care & Keeping of You which tackles some of the harder questions, i.e. embarrassing, that girls have with the onset of puberty. 

Of course, to my mind, the gold standard for the changing body talk is Robie Harris’ It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health, illustrated by Michael Emberley. The friendly cartoons do much to take the uncomfortableness out of talking frankly about sex. The book is newly updated to include a chapter on being safe on the Internet; this new updated version comes out in the beginning of September. Robie has added to the original book with It’s NOT the Stork: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends for younger kids. This book really just answers the age-old question that still makes some parents squirm: "Where do babies come from?" And then when parents are ready for a little more there’s It’s So Amazing!: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families.

For families that want more text, the My Body, Myself series is quite good and has recently undergone a cover redesign and and resource update. On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow!: A "What’s Happening to My Body?" Book for Younger Boys and its companion book for On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow!: A "What’s Happening to My Body?" Book for Younger Girls, focus on getting younger boys and girls ready for the changes of puberty. Full of real information and questions from real kids, this book can help start the "what is puberty going to be like?" questions.

And there there’s one book designed just for parents that’s been very popular at the store this spring: The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear from You About Sex. We’ve had entire book groups read this to get ready to be better at talking to their kids. It continues to sell well and parents say it gives them the background to know what issues they want to focus on — responsibility, how to say no, etc.

These are not new books, but they are the best in their field at helping parents and kids navigate puberty. It’s our job to listen and do our best to hand the parents the right book and not laugh when nervous parents have no clue. I can happily say, after reading several of these books, the moms came back into the store and told me everything about spongy tissue I could ever want to know, really, ever.

Rumors that a third incarnation of the Kindle could surface before the end of 2009 has the tech-obsessed twittering (with both lowercase AND capital "T") with delight. Others, though, are shaking their heads about a Kindle future, and/or cooking up very entertaining videos like this one from CollegeHumor that depicts one very confused future. (Thanks to sales rep Ted Wedel for the link!)

Note that if the video doesn’t appear on your computer because the CollegeHumor window is too wide, you can also watch it on the College Humor site (linked above) or watch it on YouTube.

Now "READ" it and weep:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Longing to dress up your home with some outmoded images of freaky-lookin’ kids or laugh-inducing images of freaky-lookin’ animals? Look no further than Art.com, where you can get almost every imaginable type of image to be printed for you in poster size, including the following GEMS, which are the covers of some now out-of-print (whew!) books once published by Rand McNally.

Click on each poster to read more about it and/or make a purchase. Note that if you search the Art.com site for "children’s book" you’ll find still more of these beauties.

*****
When Mommy was little, phones weren’t portable, but they sure were SPECIAL!

Cute or creepy? You decide.

Does this turtle look overweight to you?

"Y’see, Mike? We can fight this fire one-handed!"

Because "Benjamin Engamin" was just too ridiculous.

"Extra eyeliner helps me keep an eye on my baton!"

I love that they’ve chosen to feature "The Naughty Side" of this book, rather than the "Goody" one. (Note the tears of anger/shame.)

"I LOVE WEARING NECKERCHIEFS!! Scout’s Honor!"

For the record, Gareth and I will be taking a Honeymoon at some point during the months following our wedding, but a Punnymoon is not on our agenda. I’m guessing a Punnymoon is a several-days-long bus (or TRAIN) trip, during which an overly chatty tour guide tells the WORST JOKES EVER, accompanied by winks and elbow nudges. ("Did you get that one? Hunh? Hunh?")

 
GAH! My eyes! My eyes!

OMG. Latawnya the Naughty Horse has relatives!! 

Otherwise known as "Charlton Heston for Children."

A kinda pathetically cute excerpt from the Ten Commandments for parents:

I should note that Art.com also carries a lot of beautiful book images painted by N.C. Wyeth for those of you who are more keen on, say, putting ACTUAL art on your walls.

But something tells me those Rand McNally covers will generate more conversation!

The lovely illustrator, Claudia Rueda, recently shared a video of a short, moving interview with Eric Carle about his collaboration with Bill Martin, Jr. In turn, I want to share it with you at the end of this post. It made me think about the time I got to meet him. There is something so magical about Eric Carle; his joy and tenderness and generosity shine gently outward, infusing his art and warming his interactions with the many, many people who love that art.

Some years ago, Mr. Carle allowed a group of New England children’s booksellers to tour his studio. We filed up the stairs, excited and a little nervous, into a large open room with a high ceiling, lots of light, and a restful emptiness in the center. My memory is that the walls were lined with cabinetry about waist-high, appealingly clean and bright, with artist’s materials and works (both finished and in progress) here and there about the room. (Please note: the three photos here are screenshots borrowed from Eric Carle’s website, and were not taken during our visit.)

Mr. Carle put us at ease instantly, showing us all the nooks and crannies and sharing tidbits about some of the pieces. We were enthralled by the slim drawers he pulled out, filled with colorful handpainted collage papers, the sculptural and "experimental" art in glass and metal and other materials I hadn’t associated with his work. I admired the light pouring in through the high Amherst windows and the bookcases filled with large, slightly worn art books that have clearly been read and loved and used well over the years. At one point, he mentioned an artist’s name that was unfamiliar to me, and he darted over to the bookcase and pulled down a volume, eager to show me, to pass along a piece of his own joy to a new set of eyes. It was a revealing moment, that gesture.

Next to the studio was a spacious room that served as a meeting area for visitors, furnished with comfortable, handsome sofas and chairs and a coffee table, and the walls were festooned with framed art by Eric Carle, including one three-dimensional piece created out of brightly colored, interwoven ribbons of metal — the singlemost joyful piece of art I’ve ever seen.

The greatest gift of our tour was watching the artist in action. Toward the end of our time in the studio, Mr. Carle invited us to gather around his large work table while he stood, creating a small collage piece, cutting the papers into varied shapes with small sharp scissors, holding the pieces one at a time with tweezers, placing them quickly and surely onto the background to create a form. These fluid motions became a beautiful bird, a red bird, I think; I remember its lively bright black eye. Working, he radiated so much joy (I keep using this word because it’s the most apt one), and I was overcome by a surprising, embarrassing, sweep of emotion. What I mean is, I cried. I was so moved that tears leaked out of my eyes and wouldn’t stop. I actually had to back out of the studio as unobtrusively as possible and go outside, where I sobbed on the street, overwhelmed.

This kind of emotional response to an artistic experience is all well and good when it happens within the walls of one’s own home, but in public, you could be seen as kind of loony. I especially worried that Mrs. Carle, a lovely, intelligent woman who had registered my reaction before I managed to hurry downstairs, would think I was some kind of unstable fan and have me barred from the Eric Carle Museum for life. However, she left the studio to run some errands while I was waiting downstairs for my bookseller friends to emerge, and when she saw me, she patted my shoulder, said something perfect and gracious and brief about the power of art (but without any of the pretension that phrase might conjure) and went along her way. That brisk kindness was worthy of Eleanor Roosevelt herself, and I am still grateful to Mrs. Carle for it.

I think seeing anyone at the peak of his or her craft, fully engaged, at ease, doing beautifully what he or she loves and seems meant to do, is one of the great human discoveries in life. We are surrounded by this kind of joy, and when we see it, we are so, so lucky.

Here is the interview. Enjoy.

I refuse to believe Eric Carle has illustrated his last children’s book, but if that turns out to be the case, what riches he has given us!