Boo

Our monthly Kids Reading Group meets on the last Sunday of each month, and as this was as last as you could get, to day was the day. We were there to discuss Un-Lun-Dun by China (in my hand) Mieville, a book demcratically chosen last month by the ambitious youngsters. At 528 pages it was a bold move, perhaps a bit too bold, because a few of the group didn't read it!
Those who did, however, thought it was brilliant, and they loved the negative hero aspect of it and also the crazy imagination of this rather good author (and the female lead character).

Today was also the birthday (well almost) of one of the regular members of the book group called Finn. We'd planned a bit of a surprise for him, because one of his favourite books is Tim, Defender of the Earth, by soon to be legendary Sam Enthoven.
Last year Finn wrote a review of the book for us to stick up in the shop. It just so happened that Sam came in one day and saw the review, he loved it and asked if he could use it for the paperback edition of his book. Finn was mighty proud and was very happy for this to happen.
So the sensible sized paperback is now out with Finn's quote on the back of the book. If you want to know what Finn said it was.

'If you don't like books with action-packed chapters with big scary monsters wrecking national monuments and giant cockroaches killing people, you will not like this book. I loved it..'

It's there on the back of the book, and also Sam writes on his website, that it's his favourite review.
So , enough pre-amble..we recently had a chat with Sam and thought it would be great to say thanks to Finn in some way for what he wrote. So this morning at the end of the Book Group meeting a smiling face peered through the window.

'who's that man with the snakeskin hat?' said one of the group.

When Finn saw Sam it was brilliant. He was so surprised and it was just how we'd hoped. He was presented with US Editions of both Sam's books, which Sam had signed (he told Finn he hadn't put a dedication in them in case Finn wanted to flog them!), and he stuck around for the group to ask lots of questions.
It's things like this that make me love what I do.
Go community bookshops, go!