Chloe and I got to enjoy our very first book signing event this past Friday. This is Chloe with her favorite author, Shannon Messenger. This author is just as personable and as bubbly as she looks. She was so gracious to the room full of tweens who adore her books and had 4,397 questions to ask her.
Since we got there about an hour early (but we got fantastic seats), we had a lot of time to talk. This was the signing for the 5th book in the series. Chloe has been on pins and needles for weeks awaiting its release. I asked her how many times she read the previous 4 books. You will not believe her answers. Book 1: 20 times; Book 2: 7 times; Book 3: 25 times; Book 4: 26 times; Book 5: 5 times. She just got book 5 less than 5 days ago. These books are upwards of 500-600 pages! People - Chloe has a huge problem! Can you not see it?! The poor girl is addicted to reading - especially books she loves and especially this series. I had no idea. Apparently, I'm failing in the 'keeping-up-with-Chloe's-books' part of parenting.
Prior to this, Percy Jackson was her favorite series. That was like 3 months ago. You don't even want to know how many times this series was read. Apparently, my parental warning of "only read new books" was heard but immediately discarded. Who cares about trying to open up their horizons? Who cares about learning other points of view? Who cares that their are other fantastic authors out there? Not my kids. When they find a series or an author they like, they ride it into the ground. They hold on and don't let go. They sleep with their books. They memorize their books. They quote their books. Bibliophile would be an accurate description of this sweet girl. The only reason she even found her new favorite series and this fantastic author was because I happened to pick it up at the library for her to "just try it out to see how you like it."
One other small piece of information I learned while awaiting the book signing. 12 year old girls do not like it when their mom's sing out loud in public. I was just trying to pass the time. I had a song stuck in my head, so every once in a while, a little diddy would come out. No one heard me - how could they? There were 70 other 12 year olds in the room talking like their existence depended on how loud they could be. Trust me, no one was going to hear a 43 year old mom belting out "Locked Away". Granted, they may have seen my lips move while I mimicked singing into a microphone whilst also closing my eyes and throwing my head back as I was opening my arms wide. But they definitely would not have been able to hear if I was on or off key.
Take this as a lesson kids, if you raise kids in a house with multiple bookshelves in each room, always read to and with them, take them to the library more than once a week and show them just how fun reading is, you may end up with some serious bibliophiles on your hands. I can only hope you are equipped to deal with them.
