Enthusiasm - Question of the Day?

 The license plate read ELMO! and hanging from the antenna was a little red muppet's face. It made me smile. I thought of how we all have enthusiasms - favorites - throughout our lives.

A friend's email address used to contain the letters "grdnr". Gee, I wonder what her enthusiam was.

My email address begins with the word "book."  Want to guess what one of my enthusiasms is?

Here are some things that catch my eye no matter when or where I see them. 

-Peeps - the JustBorn kind. I don't think they are very tasty but I love their plump shapes.

-Clouds - I get a little crazy about clouds. I have to keep my eyes down some days.

-Sparkly things - I am part crow, I guess. If I see a sparkly thing on a walk, I must stop and pick it up.

-Books - well, duh! and talking about books here are some more enthusiasms - or favorites.

-Seymour - the character in the Walter Wick books. I made a little Seymour character for us to play with one year.

-Elephant and Piggie - I know I am not alone in gravitating towards these characters in  Mo Willems' fabulous series.

-Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore and Piglet, et al. - The Ernest Shepard version. I am warming to Disney's bowdlerization of Milne's characters but, oh, I love the original Hundred Acre Woods.

So here is your question of the day. Do you have an enthusiasm, a favorite, a character or activity that you love?

Did you have one when you were younger? (Okay, two questions. You can handle it.)

In my teens, I collected little plaster elephants. I carried them in my purse to school and to work. No bigger than walnuts, they came in different colors. I had to have one of each. I have not thought of them in years. Then, I saw a car that announced that a grown-up still loved a little red muppet and I realized how much joy we can get from small enthusiasms.

Cookies!! - Books of December

I wanted to feature books on gingerbread.  The multitude of gingerbread man, baby, girl, woman, twins, doll, bear, dog, computer mouse (joke) books out there have raised my blood sugar to dangerous levels.

Cookies are less sweet but there are some winners available - and most of them are holiday free!  Read them now.  Read them months from now.  Still tasty.

The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems.  The cheek of that little duckling!  He asked for a cookie - politely - and he got one.  The Pigeon wants a cookie.  Does anyone ever give HIM a cookie?  Another delightful meltdown by the world's favorite pigeon!  And cookies.   And a very cute Duckling.  (And too many sentence fragments.)

Cookies : Bite-size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated by Jane Dyer.  Oooooh, Jane Dyer artwork.  Now that IS sweet!  Rosenthal uses the process of baking and eating cookies to introduce concepts such as the difference between "fair" and "unfair" or what it means to cooperate.  And the pictures?  Well, they are by Jane Dyer.
Read Christmas Cookies : Bite-size Holiday Lessons by the same team to feel all warm and yule-tide cozy.

Gingerbread bunnies, gingerbread husbands, gingerbread hearts, wives, foxes, ponies, dreams, AAAHHH!!!
Still...

The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone.  This is the version I grew up with.  The text is straight forward and the illustrations are bright and snappy.

The following book is for teenagers.   

Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn.  Cyd Charisse - no, not the long-legged actor from the '50s - is a young teen with a lot of attitude.  She's been thrown out of school - again.  Her mother and stepfather are fed up.  So across the country to NYC, Cyd goes, to meet her biological dad and her half-siblings and, hopefully, get straightened out.  There are not many cookies in this book.  There is a lot of smart-a** dialogue and convoluted thinking.  Cyd makes some blunders but the reader cheers her on.  There might be some dated phrases here (c2004). 
BTW, Gingerbread is her rag doll, her talisman and best friend.  I relate.  I still have my kid-hood best friend.  (In the attic.)