The Hundred Dresses

Did I ever tell you that Clyde specializes in children's stories? She does. She hopes to become a children's book author someday. Her master's thesis is in connection with the promotion of reading amongst children. She has taught children how to read. She plans to open a bookstore someday somewhere along Katipunan and she has decided that it's going to be filled only with books she has read and approved.

I told her that I think it's going to turn out to be a very tiny bookstore. I mean, c'mon, how many books in the world can you possibly read even, say, in a lifetime? But she was undeterred nevertheless. She told me that she'll have me man her bookstore. I replied to her that it's all that I've ever wanted to do all my life. But I was laughing when I told her this. Though anyway, I'd be very happy and helpful towards her bookstore when it materializes.

The above is just my way of segueing to what I want to say. I have here on my hands a book that happily, Clyde is lending me. It's titled The Hundred Dresses and it's by Eleanor Estes. Illustrated by Louis Slobodkin. I looked at it, took in the illustration and the drawings, and felt that I would like it.

Procrastinating until my official Master Yoda will call me a terrible young padawan, I took the book in my hands, opened to the very first page of the very first chapter and started skimming the first few paragraphs.

I smiled widely. It's well-started. The author did a good job and now I know that to the end it'll be a good job. My compliments to her editor as well. If it was a good job, then there must have also been good editing. You know a good story when you read it. You can feel it in how it immediately draws you, how it cleverly makes you form questions in your mind thereby arousing your curiosity...oh, it's all so masterful when it's done well. You know a clever author when you read her.

I'm just saying this because I'm telling you - I know I'll enjoy this book. I'm just making the prediction beforehand. And when I'm done reading it, I'll tell you whether my instincts were right.

And now...now...it's time for me to do good in my work. Handcuffs back on again. Got to keep myself from playing hooky more than I have already been doing. I need to continue doing well. At the very least, I need to continue trying and try I will.

So back to work. I think I'm going to be needing a lot of sugar rush tomorrow. :p