Lights! Camera! Book Fair!

I had the pleasure of joining one of my daughters at her school book fair
today. The 45 minutes we spent there, exploring books and delighting in them together, were, easily, the highlight of my week so far. Though she's in the 6th grade and an excellent reader, she humored me and, at one point,  happily allowed me to lead her to the picture book section. She's open-minded, full of joy and incurably romantic and I was so excited to share with her one of the sweetest new picture books that came out this year. I handed her  Peter McCarty's  Henry in Love, which she then read aloud to me in her school gym. We ooh-ed and aah-ed in unison and hugged a lot. I enjoyed one of those magical moments when you hug your child, flashback to the angelic baby she was, flash-forward to the incredible adult she is developing into and feel gratitude and tremendous love for who she is right now. All this from a picture book about a quiet dreamer who has a thing for a bold girl who says what she thinks and the blueberry muffin that brought them together. The moment reminded me why I started writing this blog in the first place. I wrote in reaction to a New York Times article that declared the death of the picture book. So not the case! Picture books create magical experiences that transcend age differences and barriers. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture book and the experiences it can generate are priceless. Needless to say, we bought the book (and several more, of course). What a perfect gift for the first night of Hanukkah!