Raina Telgemeier

631 Words2 Pages

“I LOVE this book,” I nearly shout at a bewildered-looking middle schooler standing in front of my cash register. A teen screaming about children’s books is understandably unsettling, but I continue at full throttle. “I’ve been following Raina Telgemeier’s work since I was in elementary school when she published her first book, an autobiographical graphic novel about her two front teeth, or lack of two front teeth--” I babble on. I first learned how to work a cash register at the age of seven by attentively observing my mom at my elementary school’s Scholastic Book Fair, and I’ve had the pleasure of wrangling the irritable Scholastic cash registers every year since. I’ve done so from when I was too young to ring up kids that were older than …show more content…

The magic was palpable as I played self-made ping pong with Grant, the kid of the other mom in charge. To the hardcover picture books we used as paddles: I am so sorry! I appreciated you then as much as I do now, I just didn’t know how to appropriately show my love. The magic still comes back to me as I glance over at the many spines reading Coke or Pepsi? on my bookshelf, the notorious question book that no one ever finished but was nonetheless purchased anew each year. Sometimes, I crack one open to gain insight on my younger self: Coke or Pepsi? “Neither.” …show more content…

But even that couldn’t kill the magic, for the books that lived inside those crates now reside in my heart. There are a lot of cringe-worthy finds—sorry to whoever wrote Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book—but there’s also the wondrous Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or The Book Thief and the pretentious excitement of knowing about them before anyone else. High school arrived but the book fair didn’t come with it, so I found myself returning to my middle school each year. I chat with the new army of moms working the book fair, I chat with the kids who are willing to listen, and the year that Grant showed up to help, I chatted with him too, more so than I had since we played our makeshift ping pong. I steal the now-useless promotional poster hanging in the now-dreary middle school library after my last book fair as a surrogate for the experience I’ll no longer be able to revel in once I leave for college. “I LOVE this book,” I nearly shout at a receptively smiling mom of a middle schooler standing in front of my cash

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