Margaret, Frank, and Andy Book

This is one of those book reviews with a personal story.

We lived in Salem, Oregon before we moved here more than eleven years ago. Salem has a marvelous city center that is (or at least was) still vibrant and active; full of shopping and restaurants and fun. A children's book store opened up in one of the office buildings that had been converted to shops. I wish I could remember the name - it had a fantastic selection of children's books. I'd love to talk to the owner and the book buyer now. Anyway, as I was browsing one day (long before I decided to become a teacher or a mother, I loved and read children's books)I spotted this tiny little book with an intriguing title. Margaret, Frank, and Andy I was delighted when I realized exactly which Margaret, Frank, and Andy. I flipped through the tiny book, and told myself then that I would come back and buy the book sometime. The bookshop went out of business before I bought this book and I never saw it anywhere else. From time to time I'd remember the book and look for it elsewhere, but I never spotted it. Just the other day I remembered it again and looked it up. Imagine that! It was written by Cynthia Rylant. She's become my favorite children's author, though I wasn't aware of her 13 or 14 years ago when I found this book.

Anyway, I requested it through the magic of interlibrary loan and read it this morning. Perfection! The entire book is only 48 pages long and they are tiny pages at that. But, it is perfect. A lyrical summation of a life - so perfect. I am not telling this well. Here's an example:

She lived in an old house in Maine that had do electricity and no bathroom and she called it the Only House. It was perched all alone on a high sea cliff and was quite wobbly and rundown but she loved it dearly, and of course she would, for she was Margaret Wise Brown.

See?

So... double joy this morning. The pleasure of a great book, read in bed before the day begins. The rare pleasure of an old favorite or a long-lost book discovered.