Child #3's Book Talk

Notice the stylish laces.


So, Child #3 did a book talk at school. For his 7th grade language arts class.

But it wasn't just any old book talk; it was on I So Don't Do Mysteries!!!

He would not let me help him with his speech. Despite the fact that I happen to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING about that book.

Anyway, he trundled off to school with his speech on little recipe cards. In his backpack, he has bookmarks and miniature Hershey chocolates with my cover on them. He's happy to hand these goodies out to the class.

I'm on pins and needles all day. As you can well imagine.

Then, finally, it's just the two of us, driving to the allergist for his venom shots. Natch, I play it ultra cool and ask him a couple of intro questions like "How was your day?" and "How'd the math test go?" before I began MILDLY interrogating him. Here's the convo:

Me: So, about the book talk?

Child #3: (stuffing a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.) It went fine.

Me: Well, did the class ask any questions? Or the teacher?

Child #3: (opening water bottle) Yeah.

Me: Like what?

Child #3: (swigs water) Just questions. I don't remember.

Me: What do you mean you don't remember? It just happened today.

Child #3: Well, everyone asked questions. About 300 each.

Me: Wow. Can you tell me five of them?

Child #3: Not really. I don't remember any of them.

Me: Whaaat? Out of 9,600 questions about MY book, you can't even remember five? How about one? Can you remember one?

Child #3: (shrugs shoulders) Sorry.

Me: (hands tightly gripping the steering wheel) Honey, give me something. Anything.

Child #3: (takes another longer drink) Well, I forgot to say the author's name.

Me: (practically swerving off the road into the weeds) WHAAAAT? YOU FORGOT WHAT? THE AUTHOR'S NAME? YOU FORGOT YOUR OWN MOTHER'S NAME? WHAT KIND OF A BOOK TALK IS THAT WHERE YOU DON'T GIVE THE AUTHOR'S NAME?

Child #3: Kidding.

Kids. Yeesh.

I'll obviously have to resort to the tactics of all self-respecting author-mothers ... and email the teacher for the scoop.

Here's Child #4. She couldn't bear to see her brother have his picture taken for the blog without grabbing a piece of the action for herself.