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The No-Nothings and Their Baby

When Mrs. No-Nothing goes into labor, she and her husband head straight for the sign that says "Fast Delivery," proving just how silly this pair is, but they are also truly devoted to their genius baby.

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

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About the author

Anne Mazer

74 books108 followers
Quite a lot of Anne Mazer’s writing education took place while she was unconscious. Her parents wanted desperately to become writers and made themselves get up at 4:00 a.m. Every morning in order to have writing time before their three young children awoke. The first thing Anne heard every day was two big, noisy electric typewriters. The furious sound of typing was her childhood wake-up music. During the day, her parents endlessly discussed ideas, plot, and character, and before she was seven years old, Anne knew about revisions, first and second drafts, and rejection slips. It was like growing up in a twenty four hour, seven day a week writer’s boot camp.

In order to escape from her parents’ obsession with writing, Anne turned to books. She was an avid reader from an early age and credits her love of reading for her writing career. Her favorite works were fantasy, fairy tales, historical fiction, humor, realistic fiction, and adventure. Her other interests were language, art, history, and science. At the age of twelve, she wanted to be an actress, a ballerina and a nuclear physicist. These careers were rapidly eliminated as she realized that a) she couldn’t dance, b) she couldn’t act; and c) she hated math.

Although at the time Anne thought writing was nothing but a nuisance, she now considers herself very lucky to have grown up with two aspiring writers. She learned a lot about discipline, perseverance and dedication to a craft from witnessing her parents’ struggle. They eventually became successful and award-winning young adult novelists.

It took Anne a long time to figure out that she, too, wanted to be a writer. During early adulthood, she worked as an au pair, a bank teller, a pill bottle labeler, a receptionist, an English tutor, and an administrative assistant, as well as other jobs that she was ill-suited for. She attended three universities, spent several years in Paris, traveled throughout Europe, and worked in Boston and New York City.

Anne’s “eureka” moment about writing came while she prepared a research report for one of her bosses. As she lovingly polished each sentence, and meticulously organized the paragraphs, she realized that no one really cared how beautifully she wrote about the latest models of air-conditioners. Except her, of course.

Using her parents’ model of daily writing and discipline, she began to write. It took her seven years to publish her first book, a picture book inspired by her then two year old son, Max.

Anne is the mother of an adult son and daughter. Over the last twenty years, she has written over forty-five books for young readers. She has enough ideas to last for another quarter century and hopes that she will be writing for a very long time.

Fun Facts About Anne Mazer

Her favorite foods are popcorn, rice pudding and blueberries.
When she was a kid, she would sometimes read up to ten books a day.
If she had magic powers, she'd choose invisibility.
She painted the rooms in her house yellow, orange, and violet.
One of her favorite childhood books was The Twilight of Magic, by Hugh Lofting.
When Anne was a teenager, her room was so messy that she needed a map to get from the door to the bed. (sort of)
In school Anne often flunked her favorite creative subjects, like writing and art.

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5 stars
4 (14%)
4 stars
1 (3%)
3 stars
9 (33%)
2 stars
11 (40%)
1 star
2 (7%)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
Profile Image for Holly Boothe.
23 reviews3 followers
October 4, 2016
I picked this book up hoping it would be funny, and I didn't even notice the authors last name until I got home *sigh, it's spelled differently but sure explains a lot*. Bias to stupidity associated with the name aside, the book was all over the place and just wasn't what it could have been (funny with a play on words? Miscommunications on literal meanings?)
Profile Image for Shelli.
5,210 reviews56 followers
July 28, 2011
Their is a good way to write stupid, this was not it. An example of good ways to write stupid is The Dumb Bunnies Series by Dav Pilkey. This book was a good example of a wrong way to write stupid. It only managed to scrape two stars from me only because I love Ross Collins art style.
Profile Image for Jenna.
6 reviews7 followers
September 3, 2007
my 2 and 4 yr old girls really like this book. it's silly, i guess.
Profile Image for Lauren.
17 reviews1 follower
May 9, 2011
This book is really humorous so if you are little but like funny stories this IS the book for you
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews