Chamber of Secrets, Here We Come!

Fanfare, please: Emily finished reading Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone today. She went out to Lincoln and Brigg with my parents today (ostensibly to a framing shop so she could choose more framing materials for Gramps to frame her art with, but I reckon it was a sneaky way of getting half an hour of trampolining and a scrummy cafe lunch in.....) and took the book with her - she just finished it as the car pulled up.

Yay!!! We're really proud of her for sticking with it - it's a long and difficult book for a seven year old (although a mere fraction of the size of the later ones, gulp) and she's perservered right the way through. When she was ill with bronchitis half way through and didn't read any of it for about ten days, we thought she'd give up, but no, she got right back into it.

This evening she's curled up with Chamber of Secrets and is already onto Chapter 4, lol. At the moment she's got five books on the go - that one, Unicorn Wishes (which she's a bit bored with, I think - bit too "fluffy"), a book about Princess Elizabeth (I not II), Nanny McPhee and the first Warrior Cats one she's re-reading. Tried pointing out she'd finish them all a lot quicker if she read them one at a time, but I suspect that's not the way she's made!

Apart from having her nose in a book and going out adventuring with my parents, this morning Emily did a fanastic job of tidying her bedroom and also dreamt up a very intruiging plot line involving Snape, our Hero Harry and a warrior cat (don't ask!). When she got back this afternoon, she created some lovely Harry Potter patterns in Dazzle.

We had a lovely email this morning from the author of the Whispers in the Wood book (green children) I wrote about earlier in the year. He's doing some stuff at the Lincoln Book Festival on the 14th May (for his slot, see about half way down that page, Mark Bartholomew). We'd have loved to go, but we'll still be away on that date. If anyone's local and free, I'd highly recommend it. Brilliant book. He has a second, Chaos in the Cathedral out later this year, which features Lincoln Cathedral. Looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, whilst Emily's been busy, Jon and I have been working our socks off. Sales are through the roof at the moment and the new shop is STILL not properly populated - there just aren't enough hours in the day. We've had some really nice new releases in recently, so I want to promote those in the new store. Kylie the Carnival Fairy (groan) also came into stock today - we sold out of the Pet Fairies in record time, so hopefully this new stock won't hang around too long either. Think we might give that series a miss from now on, though. There's only so long conscience can stand selling what is basically the same flippin book over and over again! There are so many fantastic children's books around which don't get a look in, yet formulaic fluffy stuff consistently tops the best-sellers. Still, that's marketing for you. As my father would say, in slightly more colourful terms!