Top Ten Bookish People I'd Like to Meet

I'm getting into this daily blogging . . . we'll see if it holds!
 
 

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

 
10. John Grisham
 

 
I'd  tell John Grisham how his books are the only ones that I've ever stayed up literally all night long reading.  I'd also say how his books for children, like Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer, have helped me connect with reluctant readers at my elementary school library.  And I'd finally mention that it wasn't my fault that The Firm was cancelled on NBC - I was a loyal viewer!
 
9. Rick Bragg
 

 
I would tell Rick Bragg that, despite all the bad press he's gotten the past few years, I still think he has the most authentic voice I've ever read.  I thought All Over But the Shoutin' was a perfect book, that it needed nothing more.  Then I read Ava's Man, which completed the story I had thought was finished. 
 
8. Seth Grahame-Smith
 

 
I would tell Seth Graham-Smith that I hate vampire books.  Seriously, I hate them.  Dracula scared me, and Twilight, well, let's not talk about that.  With that said, I loved, loved, LOVED Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  So why did he ruin a great book?  Here's my review of the movie - which, all in all, I admit isn't that bad.  But I'm still mad at him about it. 
 
7. Dav Pilkey
 

 
I would tell Dav Pilkey how I love to share Captain Underpants with students.  I love to see their face when I tell them that I love Captain Underpants myself.  I remember working at the Sioux City Public Library and a woman and a boy sitting at a table, laughing uproariously.  I had to see what was so funny, and I wasn't surprised that it was Captain Underpants.  Dav Pilkey is genius. 
 
6. David Wiesner

 
Have you ever seen a more beautiful book than Flotsam by David Wiesner?  I know I haven't.
 
5. J.K. Rowling
 

 
 I'd love to talk to J.K. Rowling and ask her how she got motivated to write.  I want to want to write, if that makes sense.  This will be my third year at NaNoWriMo.  Will the third time be the charm?  I'd also love to see my kids have a conversation with her.  They are much bigger Harry Potter fans nerds than I am.
 
4. Gary Paulsen
 

 
I have a lot of favorites when it comes to books, but my all-time favorite book is My Life in Dog Years.   I read this last year with a few classes of elementary students.  It's the perfect book for that, as you can read a chapter in about fifteen minutes and then not pick it up again for months and months.  My favorite story is about Ike, and I could read it a hundred times and it would still make me cry. 
 
3. Kate DiCamillo
 

 

 

This is the one bookish person on my list that I've already met!  I went to a book reading a signing at Davis Kidd Bookstore in Nashville in 2000 to support DiCamillo's first book, Because of Winn Dixie.  I've read all her books, but the most special one to me is The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, the story of a special china rabbit doll.  I talked about why in my successful application to be a book giver for last year's World Book Night.

 
2.  Carl Hiaasen
 

 
My favorite author, bar none, is Carl Hiaasen.  His books for adults are saucy fun, and his books for children?  I love that they have the same setting - modern day Florida - and theme - stick it to the man.  (Okay, perhaps not exactly, unless the man is some egotistical environment-hating man.)  I love how he puts "Easter eggs" into his books for children for people like me who read both.  His books are always checked out my school library.  What can I say?  I love to book talk them!
 
1.  Tori Ross

And finally, my favorite bookish person, Tori Ross - or Miss Tori, as she's better known - the children's librarian at the Edmondson Pike branch of the Nashville Public Library.  She is my role model, my mentor, my hero, my friend.  (And had I known, I could have met both Carl Hiaasen and seen Tori for the first time in ten years!  In March, not sure how I could have convinced my superintendent that I needed to go to the national Public Library Association conference, but . . . )