There have been some GREAT entries in Gareth’s and my "Name a Bookish Breakfast Cereal" contest, and we’ll be selecting a winner later this week! So, if any of you have been holding out with your great ideas, post them in the comments field by this Friday. Soon thereafter we’ll unveil our design for a book-inspired box!

This week has gotten off to a truly sad start, as I received some terrible news from some friends of mine today. In thinking about what I could do for them to help them through this difficult time it struck me that some "escapist reading" might be one of the few truly helpful things I could give them right now (apart from intangible things like love and support, of course). Maybe a few books they might be able to lose themselves in for a few minutes or (in the best of cases) hours at a time. I’d like to get your recommendations for this gift, but first, here’s a recommendation of mine.

At the risk of over-sharing I’ll just say that I lost one of my dearest and closest friends almost six years ago after he lost his long-standing battle with depression. It goes without saying that his loss was devastating to me. In the first few months after his suicide I searched for comfort, understanding, and escape in the pages of books, hoping that something might speak to me and say whatever it was I most needed to hear. I found, though, that I didn’t have the attention span for anything lengthy. The longest book I could make it through in its entirety was the very short Darkness Visible by William Styron, which did more for my understanding of depression than anything I’d read before or have read since. Apart from that one, though? Books — fiction or non-fiction (and I tried LOTS) — weren’t really helping. It was poems that did the trick.

A few months before my world unravelled I’d picked up the British edition of a poetry anthology from our galley pile at the store. The collection was about to be reissued here and, though, it had one of the WORST titles I’d seen in ages, I dipped into its pages and really enjoyed what I read there. Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley is a collection of poems on almost every imaginable subject that’s related to the topics of life and death. It’s a brilliant mix of older poems and more contemporary pieces, but what I love most about it is that almost all of the poems are highly readable. Their topics they cover are often deep but the poems themselves aren’t written in the types of puzzling styles that stump people who haven’t been raised to love the stuff.

In any case, after losing my friend and finding my brain too addled for lengthier things, I began reading lots of poetry, and this was the book I began to explore in depth for the first time, as I read poem after poem after poem. My friend had been a poet, so it seemed right to be immersing myself in his world at such length. It felt like maybe reading poetry was what I was "supposed" to be doing in some odd way. That feeling was fully confirmed for me when I finally read the last poem in the book and found in it all the things that I’d most needed to know, hear, think, be reassured about when it came to accepting my friend’s loss.

It’s this poem that I now share with anyone who’s lost a loved one, because to my mind there’s nothing better. I can recite it from memory because it’s permanently etched on my heart. Its words are the ones I repeat to myself whenever I think of my friend or the other people whose lives touched mine before they went… elsewhere. And now, I’m sharing it with you.

Late Fragment by Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

With that heady introduction I say that, for me, poetry is great escape reading — and this book of poetry in particular. Now I ask you: what reading (either type of reading or specific books) do you think makes for a great escape from, well… life in general? (Bonus points if your recommendation is also a good escape from the subject of death, specifically.) Please share knowing that you’re lending a hand both to me and to some friends in need, for which we all thank you.

Today’s laugh-out-loud entertainment comes compliments of Stephen Colbert and Steve Martin, who have both been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Spoken Word category. In this wildly entertaining clip from last night’s "Colbert Report", the two read from a novel by Danielle Steel, as a demonstration of their reading prowess. (Thanks to sales rep Ted Wedel of Cheapeake & Hudson, Inc. for letting me know about this one!)

Be sure also to watch the clip (from the same Colbert Report episode) that was linked to in today’s Children’s Bookshelf, in which Stephen Colbert laments not having won a certain children’s book award.

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One of the biggest challenges about arranging author events is deciding how many books to order. Especially when the event will be a large off-site event requiring you to move books to an out-of-store location and then move what doesn’t sell back again. You don’t want to under-order, because running out of books makes you look incompetent and means you will miss out on sales. But you also don’t want to over-order by any large margin, because then you’re paying chunks of money in return shipping when you send those unsold books back to the publisher.

Having played the event-ordering game for almost ten years now, I think I’ve got it mostly figured out. I generally err a bit on the high side, but usually not so high as to leave us in shipping payment jeopardy. Every now and again, though, I have to place an order for an event when I’ve got NO IDEA what kind of numbers to work with. And I recently faced what might have been my biggest event-ordering challenge yet. 

Imagine for a moment that Mary Pope Osborne is doing an off-site event with your store, at a local middle school, and you’ve got to decide what quantity to order of each title in her Magic Tree House series, of which there are 40 fiction titles, and 19 non-fiction (the "Research Guides"). You know that, for each person in the signing line, Mary will (time willing) sign an unlimited number of hardcover MTH books but only two paperback MTH books. This suggests that, because so many families do own at least two of her books in paperback and are likely to bring them from home, you should order primarily hardcovers. But how many of each title? (Take into account the fact that the most recent MTH book was published four months ago, so there’s no hot-off-the-presses frontlist title driving hardcover sales at your event.) What about those people who don’t own MTH paperbacks but will want to buy them at your event? You can’t leave them high and dry, so you’d better order some copies of each title in paperback. But how many of each title? And what about M.P.O.’s non-MTH titles? How many of those should you order?

This all depends on how many people you’re expecting, right? Well, let’s say you have no clear idea of how many people might attend this event, because you’ve never hosted M.P.O. for an event before. You’re guessing the number could be anywhere between 400 and 800 people but guessing that the number will be close to the 500 or 600 mark.

So, let’s say there are 500 Magic Tree House fans at this event and 450 of them come with their own paperbacks from home. The remaining 50 people are each (possibly) going to purchase two paperbacks apiece. Are they more likely to want the first titles in the series or the most recently published titles in the series? Or do they have favorites in the series that they’ll want to buy? The same question applies to buying hardcovers.

Let’s say you order 100 boxes of books for this event. Question number one is, WHERE are you going to be able to store them in your bookstore between now and the event? Question number two is, how are you going to be able to GET all of those boxes to the event and how long will it take you to set up the book sales table? Question number three is, how many full-length tables will it take to display all of M.P.O’s titles in both paperback and hardcover? Question number four is, since you don’t have actual off-site cash registers that record ISBNs, how are you going to keep track of exactly which titles we’ve sold and in what quantity? Question number five is, HOW ANNOYING IS IT that the most recent paperbacks in the series are priced a dollar higher than all the previous books in the series so (grr!) you can’t just tell your booksellers that "all paperback MTH books except the Research Guides cost X"?

This hypothetical situation for you is (as you might have guessed) a real situation for me. And it’s a great one! Don’t get me wrong. We are THRILLED. Absolutely THRILLED to be hosting an event with Mary Pope Osborne this Valentine’s Day. In NO way should you interpret my deliberations as frustration with the fact that we’re doing this event. ALSO in no way should you doubt our ability to pull off this feat, as we’ve done events this large before and they’ve gone FLAWLESSLY. And had an adequate supply of books.

Nevertheless, let it never be said that ordering books is a walk in the park. Or a house in the trees. If my random stabs at numbers for this event come out looking squeaky clean, this will indeed feel a lot like magic!

When was the last time you spent time in an actual pigpen? For me it was last May, when our store co-hosted an afternoon and evening of delightful fun with authors Sy Montgomery and Howard Mansfield at the Natick Community Organic Farm. (See photo at right, in which a piglet mistakes my pants for dinner.) This is the same farm at which we hosted a Punk Farm on Tour event with Jarrett Krosoczka in October 2007, during which (as you may recall) Jarrett did a reading to three VERY large pigs. (Here’s a photo from that event to refresh your memory.)

What you probably don’t know if you read this blog but don’t often visit our store (for reasons of geography, I hope) is that we host a LOT of children’s author events. It’s rare for them to include barnyard animals, but nevertheless we usually have several children’s book authors and illustrators visiting us every month. Sadly, you don’t often hear about those events here because the events themselves take up so much time (see Monday’s post) that there’s little time left for blogging about them after the fact until so much time has passed that I’ve got piles of events I haven’t blogged about and the task of playing catch up is so daunting that I just… well, pass on it. Which is why you never heard about our Pigapalooza last spring. (Or most of the events we hosted before or since!)

I’d like to make up for at least this ONE oversight here, because this one was the most photogenic event we’ve hosted/sponsored in ages. The good-natured Sy Montgomery and Howard Mansfield drove about two hours down from New Hampshire to join us on the farm for two presentations about Howard’s picture book Hogwood Steps Out: A Good, Good Pig Story and Sy’s memoir The Good, Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (which is one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books). Both of these books star the same "porcine wonder," as Kate DiCamillo might call him, as does this short video in which you’ll see both footage of the real Christopher Hogwood and the accurate depictions of him created by Barry Moser for Hogwood Steps Out.

When we weren’t enjoying the readings and presentations by Howard and Sy at this event, we savored the joys of the farm itself. For Sy the biggest of these was (what else?) the pigs. With the blessings of our farm friend Jane Harvey, Sy led me and Lee VanKirk, our store’s Event Coordinator, right into the pigpen where we got better acquainted with the farm’s piglets who were (thankfully) much smaller than the pigs Jarrett read to a year ago. 

These piglets were NOT, however, all THAT small anymore. Nor were they slow. Here’s one porker streaking by, which these gang were apt to do until they met with the joys of (dunh, dunh, dunh…) Sy Montgomery’s magical pig touch.

If you’ve read any of Sy’s books you know that the woman has an uncanny way with animals. She connects with them in a way most humans are either unable or unwilling to do. Part of her smarts, though, comes from learning what animals like. And what do pigs like (apart from eating anything edible)? Being rubbed on their bellies, back near their hindquarters. Seriously. It sends them to hog heaven. Here’s Sy demonstrating below:

See the look of calm in that pig’s eyes above? Awww, yeah, baby.

I love the look of serenity on this guy below, who looks as though he’s getting a special pig blessing from Lee.

Here’s Jane Harvey with her niece who is piglet-age herself but much smaller than these porcine peers.

Let me just say that you learn a lot about your coworkers when faced with an opportunity like this one. There are those who wouldn’t dare to get their boots muddy no matter how charming the author leading the charge, and then there are those who are not afraid to get down in the dirt and give a piglet some love. Bless Lee, who always looks so well-put-together you might think she’d be in the former camp, but no. Turns out she can charm barnyard animals with as much sincerity and ease as she does all the authors and customers who come through our doors. See what I mean?

If the noses above do nothing for you, try to resist the one below, which belongs to Sy and Howard’s WONDERFUL dog Sally, who came along to this event.

We had a decent-sized crowd turn out to see Sy and Howard, and we sold a decent number of books. But what stands out in my mind about this event was that it was a genuine thrill to spend time in the company of these two talented people and these MANY good-natured pigs. 

The end!

If your book-loving Valentine’s walls are barren, consider giving them the gift of book illustrations this year. What follows are online galleries that sell original pieces of children’s book art and/or affordable prints, so you can (hopefully) find a piece of art that both announces your affection and fits within your budget.

While I didn’t see any prints available on their site, I couldn’t resist starting this post with Images of Delight, who sells original works of art by a number of British illustrators including Charlotte Voake, Polly Dunbar, and Chris Riddell. I’m featuring them first, because I think the Polly Dunbar image above would make the perfect gift for some Valentine out there. Possibly yours? Or you, yourself? (Who says you can’t be your own Valentine?)

Who couldn’t feel the love in the illustration by Anita Jeram, below, called "Noses." It’s one of hundreds of original pieces available from Storyopolis, in Sherman Oaks, California, which sells original pieces or lithographs by John Burningham, Jim LaMarche, Lynn Munsinger, Mark Teague, Chris Raschka, Marjorie Priceman, and Bagram Ibatouilline, to name just a few.

Readers Down Under (or those not averse to paying overseas shipping costs) can order giclée prints from Books Illustrated in Australia (note that the prices on the site are in Australian dollars but they’ll happily take your American money as payment). Choose from images by Graeme Base, Alison Lester, and many more illustrators including (sigh) Shaun Tan. I’d like to give my Valentine this print, below, from The Red Tree, for obvious reasons, but I’m tempted by hmmm… ALL the others as well.

Not to torture you with what you’ve missed, but aren’t you sorry you weren’t in attendance at Books Illustrated’s "All the Wild Wonders: Weeny Works by Wicked Illustrators" exhibit last year? I would have loved to have seen all these charming, miniature illustrations by talented folks like, oh, Bob Graham who contributed this tiny piece called "How to Heal a Broken Wing."

If you REALLY want to treat your Valentine right, maybe you could whisk him or her off to Paris and let them choose their own piece, in person, from the Jeanne Robillard Gallerie. A less posh (though still pricey) option would be purchasing an original work of art from their website, which features a number of French illustrators, some of whom you might recognize but many of which you probably won’t because their books have not (so far) been published here. This does not make their art any less striking, of course. Look how the shadows tell a story in this wonderful Isabelle Chatellard piece, which now has a place on my original art wish list:

Of course, closer to home for many of us is the Elizabeth Stone Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, which is home to illustrations from talented people like Erik Blegvad, Elisa Kleven, James Ransome, and Lynn Munsinger, whose "Grandmas Teach You How to Dance" would make an especially nice gift for book-loving/dance-loving/mouse-loving grandmothers.

Grandfathers, on the other hand, might be charmed by this illustration from Scott Nash, of Grandpa wearing a red union suit. It’s just one of the many fun pieces available from Storybookart.com, which also represents work by Peter Reynolds, Douglas Florian, and Marjorie Priceman, to name just a few.

The always generous Grace Lin is currently giving a substantial boost to the coffers of one of my favorite local organizations, The Foundation for Children’s Books, through a monthly event/fundraiser called "Small Graces." Each month in 2009, an unpublished, original painting by Grace is being auctioned off on eBay, with 100% of the proceeds to benefit FCB. The auction for Grace’s February painting (see below) is scheduled to start next week!

If you fail to win one of Grace’s pieces this way, you can also purchase one from the Child at Heart Gallery, which also carries original art and prints by Trina Schart Hyman, Matt Tavares, Mary Newell DePalma, David McPhail, and many more folks.

As anyone in Western Massachusetts knows, another FANTASTIC source of children’s book art is R. Michelson’s Galleries in Northampton, owned by author Richard Michelson, which are currently hosting their 19th Annual Children’s Illustration Show. The difficulty might be in deciding whether you’d like to own a piece of art by Mo Willems or Chris Raschka? Raul Colón or Jarrett Krosoczka? Tony DiTerlizzi or Mary Azarian or E.B. Lewis or Barry Moser or…? (The list of difficult decisions goes on and on.) As for me, I have a hard time just whittling down my favorite paintings by Mordicai Gerstein, never mind having to think about the rest. For a Valentine who loves stories, though, I think this one would make a fitting (and phenomenal) gift:

Finally, here’s one more art source suggestion. If your love is a lover of classic book illustrations, set aside a few hours in which to browse the extensive gallery at NoCloo.com, which features illustrations scanned from the pages of classic books. Most are now available as affordable prints (an 8" x 10" costs $19), and there’s a relatively wide range of illustration styles represented on the site. Depending on your Valentine’s taste, he or she might go for one of William Heath Robinson’s illustrations for A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

or C.L. Hinton’s cover illustration for Under the Trees:

or maybe one of Heinrich Lefler’s illustrations for Die Prinzessen:

Of course if you can’t find art by one of your favorite illustrators at any of these or other online galleries, you can always check the illustrators’ own websites to see if they sell pieces there, or contact them to ask if/how they make their original works available. Many illustrators now sell work from their own site — sometimes even holiday-themed pieces or specially designed boxes of chocolates. Catia Chen, for example, sells both! (The print below is called "Valentine" and that’s a box of chocolates she designed, at right.)

Are there other galleries I’ve failed to mention here? If so, please tell me about ’em. And tell your Valentine to get crackin’ with the shopping, as February 14th will soon be here!

You might guess from Charise Mericle Harper‘s books that the interior of her house would be filled with whimsical accents and great design. And you’d be right! This quick post from me is just to direct you to Design Sponge, where you can tour the interior of Charise’s Mamaroneck, N.Y. home and (like me) cringe with fabulous space envy.

My interior decorating tip: hire Charise to do it for you. Or Melissa Sweet, because her house is arty and inviting also. Or Ashley Bryan, if you like the not-one-surface-untouched-by-fun look.

Today happens to be my 33rd birthday, and with that in mind I thought I ought to post something festive. Two weeks ago I was trying to come up with a contribution for the "Yankee Swap" at our store’s annual post-holiday party and thought it’d be fun to throw in something handcrafted (though not too time-consuming). Having enjoyed Gareth’s and my last birdhouse project I had purchased another cheap, unfinished birdhouse that now awaited my creative touch and thought it would fit the "$10 or less" spending criteria," so I took out my glue and scissors and got to work.

An hour and a half later Gareth comes into the room, eyes what I’m working on and says, "Oh. You can’t take that to the Yankee Swap." Puzzled, I asked why not. "It looks too good. WAAAAY too good." As only one side of the birdhouse was completed at that point I thought he might be making premature assumptions about the end result, so I kept working. An hour later I was putting the finishing touches on the thing and reluctantly agreeing with him. While I hadn’t technically spent much money on this birdhouse, it now looked like it was worth a LOT more than $10… And I wasn’t exactly eager to give it away.

Most of the credit for this birdhouse’s beauty goes to illustrator Rafael Lopez, as it was an F&G of the forthcoming Book Fiesta! (Harper Collins, March 2009) written by Pat Mora and illustrated by Rafael that I took apart and glued to the walls and roof of my avian abode. I love its bright colors and energetic images of people (what else?) enjoying books — perfect for celebrating El día de los niños/ El día de los libros, Children’s Day/ Book Day.

Inspired by Dave Vissat’s Wild Wings Literary Lodgings I wrenched out the cheap little perches that came with the birdhouse and replaced them with colored pencils. Much more fun, I think.

Yes, it took some doing to get the star to line up RIGHT over the hole for that top perch, but it was sooo worth the effort.

I think the hardest thing about this project might have been choosing which images to use from the book. They’re all wonderful, and size-wise most of them fit the walls surprisingly well.

The biggest stroke of luck, though, was the fact that this book’s title (and exclamation!) consisted of just two words, each short enough to fit on one side of the birdhouse roof.

The day after I assembled this beauty I made a quick trip to Paper Source, two blocks from our store, where I purchased a $10 gift card that made a much more suitable Yankee Swap contribution in that it didn’t lead to fisticuffs among my coworkers. AND as luck would have it that gift card landed in the hands of our store’s biggest Paper Source fan (second to me, that is). With it she can buy enough fun material to cover her own birdhouse or… do whatever it is OTHER people do with pretty paper.

If I was a bird, I’d like to attend a party in this house, be it on my birthday or at any other time of year!

9:15 a.m. on Monday, January 26 I arrive at the store and race through the Monday morning "restock report," in which I consider every children’s book that sold over the weekend and decide how many of each (if any) we need to reorder and from whom (the publisher if we don’t need it right away, a distributor if we do). 

9:45 a.m. I finish that report in just enough time to watch the ALA Awards press conference/webcast, during which I look up each title as it’s announced to see 1) if we have it in stock, 2) if I need to order more copies than what we have, and 3) if it’s available at our distributors at that exact moment. Send congratulatory e-mail to Melina Marchetta as soon as I learn she’s won the Printz Award. Receive immediate reply and realized the entire children’s book world is listening to/watching these same announcements. Even in Australia!! (Wacky.)

10:30 a.m. The press conference ends. I tell the lovely Lisa Fabiano at our store to send orders off to our distributors ASAP then place a quick call to Melissa Sweet and leave her a rushed message of Caldecott Honor congratulations.

10:45 a.m. Race out the door to get in my car and head over to the Dana Hall School where we are hosting Jonathan Stroud for a school visit.

10:50 a.m. First stop at Dana Hall = their beautiful school library, where I’d left about 15 boxes of books last Thursday + a handcart that we could use to move said boxes. With the help of librarian Liz Gray I move those 15 boxes to another building.

11:30 a.m. Met by Jonathan Stroud and publicist Jennifer Levine (of Disney Publishing) while arranging the tables on which we’d be selling Jonathan’s books to Middle School and Upper School students during their lunch hour.

We sell books and Jonathan signs books.

12:30 p.m. I box up half the remaining books, put them on the handcart, and move them (plus Jonathan and Jennifer) over to the Middle School building where Jonathan gives a lively presentation, during which he discusses with students (and draws for them) the differences between a very "traditional" hero and the heroes in his new book Heroes of the Valley (Hyperion, January 2009).

1:15 p.m. We sell more books and Jonathan signs more books. (Thanks to librarian Sam Musher for her help at this point!)

1:30 p.m. Back to the library with books on the handcart to collect two boxes I left there. Back to my car to move it over to the cafeteria building and collect boxes we left there (thanks for boxing those up, Liz!) then over to the library to load my car with those other boxes and the handcart. 

2:00 p.m. Back to the store to unload all the remaining boxes + the handcart and put more books on the sales floor in anticipation of Jonathan’s event there in the evening. Answer questions regarding various and sundry phone calls that came in during my few hours away from the store. Reply to a couple of e-mails.

3:00 p.m. Go out and grab a bite of lunch. Place tired, frazzled phone call to M.T. Anderson and leave rambling message congratulating him on being awarded a Newbery Honor. Stop at CVS.

4:00 p.m.  Get back to store and respond to more e-mails and phone calls. Set up chairs in Used Book Cellar in anticipation of evening event. Have brief meeting with booksellers Pat Pereira and Jane Kohuth. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my coworkers?? Love them!) Call M.T. Anderson again and leave message saying "I know you didn’t actually receive a Newbery Honor and that you were awarded a Printz Honor but I’m rushing around like a crazy woman today and I was a bit frazzled and…"

5:00 p.m.  Receive call from very entertained M.T. Anderson saying I’m the only one who gave him the Newbery Honor today. Laugh. A lot. Swap opinions with him on various award winners until Jonathan Stroud strides into the buying office.

5:20 p.m. Hand the phone to Jonathan Stroud and, in so doing, introduce him to M.T. Anderson (who is, like the rest of us in-the-know people, a Jonathan Stroud fan) and experience a VERY surreal I-know-both-of-these-amazing-people-how-do-they-not-know-one-another moment. Hang up the phone and get back into "events hosting mode."

5:45 p.m. There is already quite a crowd gathering for our event (hooray! and thank goodness!) so bookseller Margaret Aldrich and I move more chairs into the Used Book Cellar and haul more books up to the sales floor. 

6:05 p.m. Jonathan begins his presentation to a crowd of approximately 40 very enthusiastic fans age 10-60? (A guess.) Nice to see so many adults falling under the spell of good so-called "young adult" fiction.

7:10 p.m. Jonathan ends his presentation and goes upstairs to sign books. I chat with LOTS of lovely, very appreciative people who gush to me about Jonathan and his books.

8:00 p.m. Event attendees leave. Margaret and I then gush to Jonathan about him and about his books. I gush to Jennifer Levine about how grateful we are to have had Jonathan visiting us for this really delightful day. Margaret and I pose with Jonathan for this photo, below.

8:15 p.m. We say good-bye to Jonathan and Jennifer, then move more books around and take down chairs in the Used Book Cellar.

8:45 p.m. I go back to my desk and read a few more e-mails. Discuss events with the lovely Lee Van Kirk.

9:15 p.m. I leave the bookstore, 12 hours after I started my work day.

9:50pm I arrive home.

10 p.m. I eat dinner (bless my fiancé for putting dinner on the table at such odd hours).

10:30 p.m. I rave to you about working in an industry with people as talented and kind and intelligent and good-hearted as the wonderful Jonathan Stroud. I tell you that a father drove all the way up from Sandwich, Mass. (about an hou
r
and a half south of us) with his son for Jonathan’s event at our store because his kid woke him up at 5 a.m. to say he’d just learned that his "favorite author in the world" was going to be doing a reading in Wellesley that night and this dad couldn’t deny his son this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. His comment: "I mean, if he’d said the guy was his favorite LINEBACKER it would have been a different story, but when he’s asking to see his favorite AUTHOR? Who could say no to that?" Then I tell you that another attendee at the event (a parent I’ve worked with in the past) told me tonight that she happened to stumble across my blog last week for the first time and she found so much she enjoyed reading here — especially "the post about that guy whose house you went to? The one in Maine with all the toys? That was INCREDIBLE!! What an amazing man!!" That would be Ashley Bryan, I tell her, as I put a copy of Ashley Bryan: Words to My Life’s Song in her hands and say, "He was just awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award today."

11:40 p.m. I upload photos of Jonathan Stroud and arrange them here so that you can all admire his smiling face and note that, frazzled or not, I too was still smiling at the end of this long but terrific day.

Midnight I’m still here but will be finished with this post any minute now…

12:07 a.m. Good night!

Every parent has that ONE book they’re begged to read again and again and again and again and… Even those of us who aren’t parents have experienced this phenomenon in the role of teachers or siblings or babysitters.

There are plenty of reasons that reading the same books multiple times to a child is actually helpful to their development. Children find it reassuring to find that their favorite tales turn out the same way in the end, each time they listen to them. They generally ask more complex or insightful questions about a story after they’ve heard it multiple times. Once they’ve heard the book enough time to have memorized it, they’ll recite it or "read" it to you — an important step on the road to literacy. Reading and rereading the same books to a child is therefore a healthy practice. But boy it can be a pain in the… hindquarters.

With that in mind, I put this question to you today: What book were you/are you asked to read FAR too many times (for your happiness) by a child in your life? Was it a book you once loved and eventually grew to hate? Was it a book you didn’t like in the first place and therefore had to suffer through even from the start? Can you still recite it to this day, some X years later? Purge those tortured memories here and/or recite for us what you still recall from that particular book.