Jesus Creed
It’s only now, during my second holiday shopping season here at Parnassus, that I realize: The books that changed my life were probably put into my grandparents’ hands by somebody much like myself. Somebody at John Rollins Booksellers who saw someone like you in the children’s section and walked over and asked, “Is there anything I can help you find?” Somebody who listened to my grandmother describe her ten-year-old granddaughter, who had recently discovered CS Lewis and Narnia, who had loved The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables, who wasn’t afraid of length or complex vocabulary, who loved to crawl inside stories and be transported. And that somebody said, “Oh, I know just the book for her.”
My grandmother passed away five years ago, on my 23rd birthday. Most of the books from those boxes under our tree are still at my parents’ house, where they’ll stay until I stop moving from apartment to apartment and have a house of my own. But that copy of Sabriel has traveled with me — to college in Boston, grad school in Austin, a book festival in Texas where Garth Nix himself signed it. Like most of the books, there’s an inscription on the endpapers in my grandmother’s handwriting, though she signs it from both her and my grandfather. I don’t have much to remind me of my grandmother, but I have this book, and I have the hundreds, maybe thousands, of books for young people I’ve read in the years since it sat under my Christmas tree.
So I’m serious when I tell you, I’d really love to help you find the perfect book for the child you’re shopping for. I know it could change their life.
By the way, Grandma Kris loves to buy books for Aksel and Finley.
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