Up before dawn and drinking coffee, I am gathering myself for the last day of retail summer: the release of the long awaited Catching Fire. I am up this early because my dogs wouldn’t sleep past 4:32 a.m. and I thought, wow, I’ve got so much to do, I might as well get a jump on things.

Preparing for a release this big requires planning and stamina. Because school starts tomorrow, we didn’t think a midnight party would pass parental muster, so we’re opening at 8 a.m.  The cartons of books that have been secreted away in the back room can finally be opened and the books can be put in tidy stacks on the display in the front of the store. This sort of arranging, while not rocket science, takes time to do right and make look inviting. My goal is make sure that anywhere an eager reader is likely to look for the book, the book can be found.

We are short-staffed at the moment, so much of the grunt work of setting up for the 11 a.m party is falling to me and Elizabeth. We are setting up our event space (a great room above the store) as a training center. Each kid will pull a number designating their home district and also where they’ll train first. Since we’re in a room, we can’t have all the training stations, but we’re going to have archery, yes, probably the one thing that should be outside; we found suction cup and Nerf archery sets, so no one should actually get impaled. A customer’s dad is coming to show knot-tying and our ten and six-year-old nephews will be in the loft of the room with parachute men lobing the tributes to those who are worthy.  Instead of bread we’ll be using bagel bites and just lob them down from on high.

Elizabeth has designed a Hunger Games word search. Proper completion with speed will garner a prize. There will also be a "guess what happens" quiz, with one lucky winner to get a certificate for book three. 

The great thing is because this is training, there are no winners. This takes a lot of the stress out of it for participants. They’re just supposed to have fun. Although, I wonder how many kids, the day before school starts, are going to stay for a party when there’s such a great book to read. It’ll be an interesting and great day.

I’d write more, but I’ve got a ton to do.