Overheard at Wellesley Booksmith


Alison Morris - April 30, 2007

The scene: A mother, her seven-year-old daughter, and her daughter's seven-year-old friend are browsing in the children's section of their kid-friendly, local independent bookstore. The mother is browsing the shelves when the girls discover a copy of David Shannon's A Bad Case of Stripes, a book about a girl whose appearance changes according to the interests of her peers and who is, at one pivotal point in the story, striped from head to toe with the colors of the rainbow, as depicted on the book's cover.

The two girls run over to the distracted mother, brandishing a copy of the book.

Girl Number One squeals, "Mom!! This is the book we should get for Katherine! We have it at school and it's really good! It's about this girl, and she gets a bad case of the Stripes."

Girl Number Two intones meaningfully, "I had that once. It was really bad."

Bookseller shelving books in adjacent aisle puts hand over mouth and quickly exits so that girls won't hear the staccato sound of her laughter.

End scene.

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