NPR’s All Things Considered came to eStem Middle School to do one of their Backseat Book Clubs last month. Mary Polly and several other students got to meet local author Trenton Lee Stewart and ask him questions about his books.
Mary Polly’s question was chosen for the program that aired this past Tuesday. (She is on the air asking her question towards the end.) It’s so fun to me that she got to do this because she loves these books so much.
The spring we discovered The Mysterious Benedict Society was right before Taido and I packed our entire family up and traveled all summer long in a pop up camper. I remember that Mary Polly wanted to be Kate, one of the memorable characters in The Mysterious Benedict Society. She was determined to have a red bucket like Kate to take on our trip, and she was more than thrilled when her Aunt Whitney tracked one down for her.
I have many pictures of her with that red bucket that summer. She used it for everything! When she wasn’t filling it with rocks or water, she had it filled with her markers, pencils, scissors and other random objects.
Mary Polly also anxiously awaited the other two books about the fabulous Mysterious Benedict Society, reading them as soon as they were available. She has most recently been working and reworking all of the puzzles in a book of riddles that was published by the author last fall.
And though she has shared all these books with her grandparents, parents, siblings and even her uncle, she always manages to collect them back up from everyone and place them on her special shelf so she can read them again and again.
A fourth book is due out this spring, a prequel to the first one. She has pre-ordered it and when it comes, she will hide herself in her room until she has finished it. Then she’ll read it again before it is relinquished to the rest of us.
She is a big fan.
I just love to see a kiddo who enjoys books this much!