Amanda

November 19, 2008

Hi,

I am so happy to have found this website (not that it really took much searching, it just never occurred to me before), mostly because I have wanted to tell you for the past fifteen years how much I love your books–especially Lizard Music. I’ve worn through two copies of it already, and am steadily at work on my third. I’ve forced everyone I know to read it (and they were grateful afterward…well, most of them were), and have given it out as a gift to children regardless of their ages (so far, ranging from my negative-two-month-old niece–she’ll appreciate it one day!–to my eighty-four-year-old grandmother).

I’ve taught and tutored lots of kids, and now I’m a children’s librarian, and I devote a lot of effort to getting my kids to read Lizard Music. They always ask me who Walter Cronkite is. Also, they’ve decided that Hogboro is Chicago–with Lake Mishagoo and all–and that McDonaldsville is a stand-in for the cookie-cutter suburbs they all sneer at (which is always pretty funny, because a lot of them live in those suburbs). I’ve been trying to get the library to back a summertime field trip to go out on the lake to look for Diamond Hard, but so far they’re not biting.

Anyway: thank you for bringing so much joy and inspiration to me, my friends and family, and my students and patrons. We’re so happy that you’ve written so much, and that you (and your wife) continue to produce fun, smart, and entertaining books for us to love and devour.

This is a cool message. I am pretty much smiling as widely as I can. Thank you.