A Reading Miracle

Six years ago (now I feel old) I was sitting in my Children’s Literature class at BYU, listening to a local author read part of a manuscript she was currently working on. It was about a girl who lived in Salt Lake City with her mom and grandmother, and had no idea who her father was. It was some big mystery that her mother refused to talk about. With her 16th birthday approaching, she sets out to find her dad. With some help from her friends she tracks down his email address and phone number and contacts him. She thinks he’s great and can’t figure why her mom hates him. Then horrible things start to happen, beginning with the gruesome death of the family dog.

The author went on to talk about how she was thinking of killing either the mother or grandmother and hadn’t decided which yet, and that she wanted to set the climax at Bear Lake. It had no working title or publication date but the parts she had read were pretty cool so I made a mental note to read it when it came out. Over the last few years I had thought about this book and had tried to track it down, as recently as two or three months ago. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the authors name and, with no idea of the title, had been unsuccessful in finding it.

Flash forward to last Monday. I was working on putting together the bio’s and info sheets for the 30-some-odd authors and illustrators coming to our next big event at work, the Children’s Book Festival. As I was pulling titles and covers I stumbled upon a book called “Finding Daddy” by Louise Plummer, one of our authors. I did a double-take and thought, “No way. There is no way that I have found this book.” I quickly looked it up in the catalogue and read the description – Ta-DAA!!! – it is, in fact, my long-lost mystery book, and there is one checked in downstairs. I ran downstairs and checked it out, still having a little trouble believing that I found it. It did make me feel a little better to discover it had only been published in 2007, so I wasn’t completely inept at finding a book for 6 years, only 2.

I took it home and read it that night (it’s only about 160 pages), and it was a very fun read. One of the funniest parts is just that it’s set in SLC and the characters do things like go to Hires Big H for fries and special sauce, live in Federal Heights, visit Elizabeth “Lizzie” Borden’s grave in the old cemetery (not the real Lizzie Borden, but locals think it’s funny), and drive down streets that I know. It feels like I’m home. :) But the story itself is pretty good too, fun characters, interesting plot, a few intense scenes, and realistic outcomes. So, while there is the chance that I have personal attachment issues to this book because I’ve thought about it for so long, I will still recommend it for an enjoyable, very quick, read.


Another fun bonus of working in the library is that I am around a lot of people with a lot of access to ARC’s (Advance Reader Copies) of upcoming books. These are copies of books that are not yet, but soon to be, published sent out by the publisher to help generate interest in the upcoming book. They go mostly to reviewers, bookstore buyers, prominent target audience members, and (lucky me!) librarians, just to name a few. Needless to say, for book geeks like myself, ARCs are very cool.

Last week, my boss handed me an ARC called “Wings” by one of our local authors, whose husband just so happened to go to law school with Brad. I had been hearing about this book for a while and was excited to get it. It’s about a girl who discovers she’s a faerie (yes, that’s how it’s spelled in the book). It’s also a pretty quick read (it’s geared toward the middle-school age crowd) and was fun. It has a little interesting twist on the whole idea of faeries which helps to keep it fresh. It’s the first of a four-book series and comes out May 5. I gave it three stars on Good Reads, an “I liked it” rating, so if you’re looking for a fun read with a cool take on an old story, watch for this one.