No small wonder

I love books. We all know this. All kinds--big, little, boring, fat, picture, memoir, hilarious, odd, anger-inducing, calming, whatever. But I do especially love children's books.

Which is handy because... my co-worker is going to school to be a children's librarian. It's pretty much awesome, because we're always going off on these random conversations about illustrators and authors and genres and subtle lessons. She's taking a children's literature class that talks a lot about Caldecott books, which is fun for me personally, because one summer I decided to read every single Caldecott book I could find. I ended up reading all of the Winners and a good portion of the medal-winners, and still reminisce fondly on those picture-book-heavy days. Good stuff.

But our conversations are so hilarious. We both love the same edition of A Child's Garden of Verses because the illustrator was a genius (actually, Gyo Fujikawa is one of my mom's all-time favorite illustrators because of this book. I think that's why I love it so much), and our conversations about Crockett Johnson go like this.

Co-worker: "Crocket Johnson--"

Me: "Sheer genius!"

Not very work-inducing, but a good way to keep spirits up in the office.