Mary Jean Mork

June 21, 2012

You once commented that you never wrote a really important book. I have to disagree with you, respectfully.

My son, Zach, now 25, 6ft 3 and studying electrical engineering was once a 2nd grader, always interested in science and how the world worked, but not so interested in sitting down to read about it. He was (and still is) very smart, but felt bad about all his classmates reading "chapter books" while he was still muddling through picture books.

And then we found Blue Moose at a little book store. Zach loved that book and read it all by himself – his first chapter book. He went on to read many of your books, appreciating the humor and nerdy point of view. They made reading fun and opened a whole world to him.

So, you see, you were wrong. That book was really important and we thank you.

There are a lot of comments ascribed to me that I never made...or made while talking through my hat, and paying no attention to what I was saying.  If I actually said that, it is possible that I was falsely trying to seem modest.  Maybe I meant that books are not important until someone reads them--then the sort of thing that happened to Zach can happen.  It is also the reason I prefer to write books meant for children rather than other types of people...any one of them can turn out to be the book whereby someone discovers they possess the power of reading, and that's important.