February Lucky Day Give-Away Winners (& some shameless self-promotion)

My dear Liz and Margie Oomen, you may want to consider sending me a little note as you are the Lucky Day Give-Away winners for the month of February. Let's hold hands for a moment and jump up and down in a euphoric ring of giggling excitement, and then maybe even blow some air kisses to those who left comments, but were not quite as fortunate as yourself this month. In the meantime, these happy little plushies await their new homes, and your adoration, of course--so please contact me as soon as you have a spare moment, disclosing to where I might send these little bundles of organic cotton plushie goodness.

And thank you so much to all of you for all of your wonderful children's book suggestions. Several are on my short list as we speak--amongst them:

• The Tiger Who Came to Tea
• Tikki Tikki Timbo
• Over in the Meadow
• Jip and Janneke
• Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda
• Iggy Peck Architect
• Some of those Eric Kastner books

And I could go on...I really, truly, cannot wait to go over to our neighborhood library to see if I can dig some of these up. Any excuse to use the card catalog and take advantage of inter-library loans makes me happy. Because (on a side note) aren't libraries fabulous places? I mean, the notion that you can have access to all these books and magazines and movies FOR FREE is just too lovely in this day and age of every man for himself--even if I have been going to the library my whole life, I still am not over it. Can you imagine if someone (god bless 'em), many years ago, had not conceived of the idea of the local government buying stacks upon stacks of books, housing them in a fantastic and cozy space, and then allowing any old person to just come over and borrow the books for a month at a stretch, at will? I mean, I am pretty sure that if someone tried to push that idea through the government and the powers that be today, well, we would all be SOL. We can't even get a public healthcare system in place, for goodness sakes. Well, I seem to be digressing, so let me put away the soapbox before I get my feet too firmly dug in.

But wait. I should share with you what are a couple of my all-time favorite children's books-quid pro quo you know. You can actually read about them already right here on this blog--it is this one and this one and this one. So go check those out--all of them have my perfect combo of heartbreakingly lovely illustrations and an original story.

But there is one other little thing I wanted to share with you yet--namely some shameless self-promotion. You see, I am over at Gratz Industries, at this very moment, divulging all sorts of not-quite-so-trade-secrets about my longing to redesign Little People, and the sad but true story of the inspiration behind my Bitty Bebes, and my crazy corporate day job where I get to tell old guys in suits what to do, and also my own advice to you. You can read all about it right here. Thanks to Wendi for having me and being interested in what I might have to say (and you should see her sweet bunny plushies--those little satin ears are so luscious).

Margie? Liz? I am waiting to hear from you...