So many readers: It’s been a great year!

This is the Boat that Ben Built has been out in the world for one year! This is the first post in a short series to mark the occasion.


The other day, as I was getting ready to go on a school visit, I realized that I was almost out of bookmarks to hand out to the kids. I opened my email account, searched for the local company who printed that first batch*, and logged back in to my customer account to reorder. I expected that my original order had been for, maybe, 100 or 200 bookmarks. It turns out, I had ordered 500. And now, only 5 were left.

That’s what it took for me to realize that at the bare minimum, 495 kids had read my story. And that’s when I got excited, because I started thinking about the exponential impact of teachers and librarians and caregivers sharing my book in Ottawa and beyond. It really has been a great year.

Here are some of the amazing readers I know about:

Photo collage of children holding This is the Boat that Ben Built, and of the author reading the book to children.

It’s so motivating to have these photo memories capturing reader joy and interest. On a bulletin board in my office I’ve also pinned the names of kids who have asked me to sign a book for them at local events. (I ask them to write their names on a post-it note so I don’t misspell it, and if they leave the note behind, I add it to my collection!) It’s fun to think about how the kids in these photos and on those post-it notes might one day engage with the stories I’m drafting now.

Thanks for the great year, readers! Here’s to many more to come.


Up next, some bookstore love!

*Shout out to Newprint in Ottawa, ON for the beautiful bookmarks!

 

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