Why I Live in the City

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You know what I love about living in Philadelphia?  It's so close to nature.

As witness the following:





And Brian Jacques is dead, alas . . .

I never met the man but I was a big fan of his work.  Particularly because he was writing at a time when I especially needed his books -- when my son, Sean, was first old enough for YA books.

There are a sufficiency of books for adults, and easily a bajillion books for children.  But for that in-between transition stage?  Not so many.  Especially when you want them to be the kind of books that will encourage a youngster to continue reading with pleasure.  So for several years I was constantly on the lookout.

One day I was in the Barnes and Noble in Bryn Mawr and cruised through the YA section.  I idly picked up a copy of Redwall to see if it might be worth reading the first page.  There was a ten-year old girl sitting quietly on the floor nearby, reading.  She glanced up from her book, saw what I was holding, and made an instant sale of that book and many subsequent volumes by solemnly saying, "Oh, that's an excellent book."

In my mind, that will stand forever as a worthy judgment of not only the book, but the life.  Well done, sir.  You wrote excellent books.

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