Laurel Snyder

When I was a kid, my parents “encouraged” me to read. By which I mean they filled our house with books, and then ignored me, locked me in my room, and established a rule that stipulated I could stay up as late as I wanted, but only to read.

But there was someone else in my life who really really really “encouraged” me to read. My grandmother.

She was a children’s librarian, and she was very invested in picture books. She spent a lot of time hunting down first editions for me, and then getting them signed by authors she loved. Marcia Brown. Arnold and Anita Lobel.  Tomie de Paola.  These were among her favorites.

The book coming out in January, Seven Stories Up, is very much a book she inspired– a fictionalized version of one summer in her life.

But in a funny turn of events, something else is happening to me this week. Something that connects to my grandmother. Tomie is coming to town!

So I am taking some of my books to get them REsigned, dedicated to my boys. There will be TWO generations of inscriptions in these books, which were bought by my grandmother, who never got to meet my boys. I was pregnant with Mose when she died.

How’s that for a family of reading?

(Unless of course Mr. De Paola refuses me.  In which case I shall curse him, like the Troll-queen I am)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 27th, 2013 at 10:33 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.