8-19-10
If you look at the statistics, it is not often that an author pens a marvelous first book. And yet, I often find myself enamored of first books. They seem to often be written with both the clearest eye and the most innocence. I have rarely found that I enjoyed a second or third book as much as the first. For example, I love Elizabeth Berg's earliest books, but am often bored by or disappointed in her recent offerings. And Sue Monk Kidd has certainly never been able to match Secret Life of Bees. Neither, for that matter,could Breshears and Sisterhood, Funke and Inkheart, or Hearn and Across the Nightingale Floor. I'm sure you can find hundreds of other examples to prove me wrong, but that wasn't quite the point of this. My point is: I rarely enjoy a third or fourth book more.

Sarah Addison Allen is different. I like each succeeding book more than the previous one. I loved this one so much that I can hardly stand having to wait a year for another one. This was one of those books for me. You know the kind. The book you stay up half the night to finish.

This little cupcake of a book made me happy. And, it reminded me again why I love to teach reading. What pleasure can be found in a few ounces of paper and ink.

10-16-11
I just reread this book as an audiobook. It's just as wonderful. Maybe even better than the first time.