Shopping

I accidentally dropped into the Strand (Broadway at 12th) on the way back from a professional development day last Thursday. The PD was hosted at Scholastic headquarters, and I had dodged that bullet by simply starting a wish list and firmly telling myself that nothing here couldn't be purchased officially with school funds. So what was I doing walking uptown on Broadway? I must have known that meant passing, or rather going in to the Strand...

I happily gave myself permission to read picture books. No charge for reading, and I added many to my ever expanding wish list. Here are a couple that were really hard to leave behind: The black book of colors by Menena Cottin with illustrations by Rosana Faria is a multi-sensory exploration of colors with the text in both white on black and in braille with embossed pictures on the black pages. A beautiful and thought provoking book. Another stand out that it was hard to leave behind was The heart and the bottle by Oliver Jeffers. Books about grief are often heavy handed telling us directly about the loss and what to do about it. Here no easy answer is presented even with the upbeat ending.

I should have stopped there, but no I had to keep walking through the children's section. In the end I couldn't resist some amazing bargains. And one book that I just wanted to read. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. More about that later.