105 Ways to Give a Book

I Am Thankful For StatCounter

I’m going to guess that most blog entries written today will focus on thankfulness in a sweet and moving way. But not this one. While many people will be wrapped up with family all day or (ugh) watching football, some of us may be using the sweet day of freedom from work and errands to catch up on our blog reading. I think we blog devotees deserve something special today.

First of all, if you missed it on Tuesday, at the end of my post on Charlie and Lola books I included an audio file of my two kids reading from the book. With British accents. So, here’s an excerpt from Lauren Child’s But Excuse Me That Is My Book, and I will keep putting it in my posts until all my blogfriends comment. I’m not kidding.

Today, I am thankful for StatCounter. Not because it records my statistics, but because its keyword search feature brings me joy. I glance at it every day, and usually the searches are for books, authors, or my blog name. But sometimes a search string stands out with a particular comic flair, and I wish I could write to that person specifically and offer my advice, suggestions, or validation. Today is that day.

I am always late
I hear ya. I am always late too. But while my lateness is due to some cosmic — and perhaps comedic — force, I suspect you are just a lazy bastard. My advice? Move faster.

Good to shave eyebrows
I’ve answered this question right in the blog entry title just to save the searchers time. No.

Wine that goes with spaghetti
Ditto.

Winnie the Pooh look like a pimp
True dat.

videos of Vanessa Anne Hudgens sneezing
I can’t imagine why anyone would want such a thing, so let me point you instead to some links to other great videos, including “Lecture Musical.” I even have a link to a movie I helped to write and produce.

gay penguin love
...is a beautiful thing. This search refers to the wonderful book And Tango Makes Three, which was number four on the Amazon children’s bestsellers list just a couple of days ago. Strange, since it came out a couple of years ago. But I stand by this book now and forever.

funny passages without punctuation
Without any punctuation at all? No, can’t help you. But I did write a post with only one period. You could try that.

use ennui in a sentence
I’ll let Jon Stewart do it from his commencement speech at William and Mary in 2004. “We declared war on terror — it’s not even a noun, so... good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui.”

ethic carrying a plate
I don’t know what this means, but I think with a little tweaking that it could be a great band name. Or book title.

poems for the dysfunctional family
...and now we’re back to Thanksgiving.

If you do want to read a little bit about real thankfulness, then enjoy the newest Carnival of Children’s Literature, Thanksgiving edtion, put on by Readable Feast. Happy Thanksgiving.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The audio file is great. How old are the 2 readers? Could it be that the sales of And Tango Makes Three went up because it has been challenged somewhere recently?

MotherReader said...

Thanks. My daughters are 7 and 10. When my 7-yr-old starting chiming in while I was reading, I knew we had to tape it. The 10-yr-old jumped right into the part of Charlie with no trouble.

I figured that a new challenge to Tango had something to do with it, but who really hears about those things other than us interested librarian/bibliophiles? It was the number 4 book at Amazon. That's a pretty big jump in the sales.