If you're a frequent visitor to this blog, you know that we have a "We Recommend" section, in which we use our super-power—the ability to find the exact right book for almost anyone, once we are given that person's likes, dislikes, etc—to recommend books for whomever writes in. (In fact, you could write in right now, give us your kid's preferences and age and whatnot, any special thing they might want to read about right now [loneliness, bicycles, horse racing] and test us out.)
Of course, if you're a frequent visitor to this blog you also know that it turns out that our powers aren't so completely super—more like hit or miss. HOWEVER, the powers of our commenters are pretty awesome, and these posts end up generating impressively long lists of books for the reader in question, which the parent (or whoever) can then take with them to the library and have a party.
I knew all this. Really. And yet, when I went ahead and posted about my own kids, I somehow didn't expect much to happen. Sure, we would post, and then people would comment, and then my kids would blow me off, because who wants to listen to their mother's helpful suggestions?
It turns out, though, that they're perfectly aware that these suggestions aren't from me. Which makes them usable! Which means that last week when Diana was at her grandparents house and they took her to the library, she went to the comments list, noted a few titles, and took them out of the library. AND LOVED THEM. In particular, Wee Free Men (which one commenter has been pushing earnestly for a year and a half) was great. When we arrived to pick her up, Diana announced "I've discovered a great new series!" And all I could think was, Holy crap, it worked!
So thank you thank you thank you to everyone who offers up suggestions. Because if it's true for us, I'm betting that it's true for other people, too.
marcialerner.com 
I love the Wee Free Men books. I’m so glad she likes them!
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Hurrah for Diana finding Terry Pratchett! She’s got some wonderful reading in front of her!
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Oh, how I love Terry Pratchet, and there’s only about a million Disc World books, so she could be busy for a nice long time.
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Hurrah, indeed!
Thanks for the message of joy–I’ve no idea if I am The pushy Pratchett person, but I do know I am one generally even if not in this instance, so I’m glad to know she enjoyed the book.
In case she falls hard for the Chalk: I just read the new Tiffany Aching, due in October, as a galley and it was as great as ever. A little older and harsher, language-wise, so depending on her age when she wants to read it, you might want to give the last third a quick peruse in case you want to have a chat about certain words’ non-latinate heritage, and how that has made them inadvisable to repeat in certain company.
Still fun, though. And the adult novels are almost as clean as the Tiffany Aching ones–more murder mysteries and some war-isn’t-worth-it battle scenes, but to my mind nothing as brutal as The Yearling (thanks, 7th grade!).
In any case, thanks for the update, and thanks for your forbearance with those of us who tend to broken-record-dom.
(Also: website design is lovely & legible & v. navigable, as ever.)
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we all know that sooner or later mom’s suggestions are blown off! so true! I was begging my daughter to read Anne of Green Gables. “It’s boring; I don’t understand the words”. But when my mother asked her to give it a try and gave her a pep talk, VIOLA!
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So true, so true! I know I’m late to comment, but as a two-time recommendation requester (and more to come, I just know, since I’ve seen the wisdom of you and your readers), I can’t say enough about all the great ideas. Genuinely great ideas, old and new books, and my kids have been loving the titles we’ve discovered!
And I hear you, the recommendations are so much better received when not actually coming from Mom. I now sneak books into the bag at the library and then onto the shelf, so that he can “discover” them himself when he’s read everything he picked. It’s amazing how well that works!
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