I love doing bookfairs for schools. I love picking out the books -- so many books about all kinds of things; I love packing them up and thinking about how cool they are; I love delivering them and seeing the kids and teachers get all excited. I love how the kids get to choose their own books (which usually guarantees they'll actually get read). After days of administrivia, actually getting my hands on books -- and placing them where kids will get their hands on them, too -- is exhilarating.
"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." (Robt. Louis Stevenson). There are books about robots, elves, dragons, bridges, dirt, pigs in slop, flying, princesses (in distress or not), rainforests, sharks, submarines, time travel, Antarctica, magic, the Chunnel, princes and paupers, butterflies. What a great way to find out about a "number of things!"
And apparently the kids at the middle school agree, since they were scouting out the books before the fair even opened. One boy methodically went through all the tables with his friend, commenting that this one was a good story, that one he'd read last year, he'd heard about a third one. Apparently all kids have *not* stopped reading, despite the gloom-and-doom predictions to that effect.
This is the joy of being a bookseller: sharing ideas, stories, imagination and reflections (in our case, in printed form) with like-minded people of any age.
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