I am always touched when people donate books to our library in honor of their loved ones. Once a year, the library buys a slew of fabulous, carefully selected titles that grandparents, parents and friends choose from, to be given in honor of someone special. And I adore the various names children use for their grandparents, which are inscribed on the bookplate. These names reflect the earliest baby sounds -- in a dim past, I remember learning about voiced, voiceless bilabial plosives, nasal bilabials and velar plosives, i.e. b, p, m and g -- and the names also are a sign of our diversity. This year, gorgeous new books have bookplates noting that they are from:
Mimi (many)
Nana (many)
Abuelita
Tata and Ajji
GrAnne & Pop
RowRow & Boppa
Baba & Granddaddy
Tutu & Big B
Gummi & Grand
Sitty & Papa
Gigi
Nanaz & Baba
Meema June
A-Ma and A-Gor
Nini
GaGa and Pappy
My favorite story of the donation sale was the kind grandparent who selected Peter Mayle's "Where Did I Come From?"Yes, the same Peter Mayle who wrote A Year In Provence, the book that makes me need wine, olives and cheese RIGHT NOW. And it's still one of the best sex education books out there. Last year, I was embarrassed to realize that most of my sex ed books feature only white people. So I bought the African-American version of this classic: the adults are still cartoony, fat, middle-aged and goofy (hey, you don't have to look like a movie star to have sex!), but also black. The grandparent filled out the bookplate, noting that it was from her in honor of her grandchild; a short while later, the parent arrived and made an urgent request: "Take his name off!" Mortification indeed, for Tata to donate a sex book in honor of her grandson Will.
Many thanks to Mindy Stombler and all the parents who helped make this event a success!
Here's a book trailer for the hugely popular Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein (click here if the embed doesn't work):
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