She uses the same successful formula from her books for adults Book Lust (2003) and More Book Lust (2005) and tackles children's and young-adult offerings. "I began my library career as a children's librarian, and spent my childhood and adolescence doing very little else other than reading, so I had a huge backlog, as it were, of books I loved to suggest to young readers," Pearl says. She adds, "The intended audience is the adults in their lives—parents, teachers, librarians, grandparents, and others—who either want to encourage them to read more or help kids find books that will excite, inform, or simply enchant them."
The book will have sections from "B Is for Babies" to "Before and After Harry (Potter, of Course)" to "Heartbreak Hotel."
Pearl thinks that attitudes about reading are changing. "I think that we don't much consider, or talk about, the whole notion of reading-for-pleasure—and I define pleasure broadly here—these days," she says. "Instead we're perhaps coming to see reading solely as a means to an end—to learn something specific, to get ahead—rather than as something that is pleasurable/good/necessary in and of itself. That's something we need to communicate better to adults and children. There's a wonderful essay by Virginia Woolf called 'How Should One Read a Book' that addresses that very issue."
Sasquatch is sponsoring a nationwide contest inviting participants to write a brief description of their first book crush. Pearl will select the winner, who will be flown to Seattle for lunch with the author.
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