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:

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!