I’ve mentioned before that I love our local Library Book Sales. They’re once a quarter and kids’ softcover books cost a quarter, so they are the main reason Theo has had shelves over flowing with books for years now. Though I have recently done a terrific job – though I do say so myself – of giving away a lot of his books, I am aware that next Saturday, there’s a sale and I won’t be able to resist stopping by and picking up more books for him. So in anticipation, I decided to stop by today and donate five kids’ books to the sale and only let myself buy up to four books next week.

Now, one of the books I donated was the book If you Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, a cute book that Theo enjoyed, but has long outgrown. Part of her best-selling “If You Give a…” series of circular tales, the book describes some imagined consequences of giving a pig a pancake. As a tribute to this series, I thought it might be fun to write a verse in that style that imagines the consequences of this donation:

If you give a book to a library,

They’ll put it in their book sale.

A mom might buy it for her daughter.

She’ll read it to her at bedtime.

Her daughter might laugh so hard she starts to hiccup.

She’ll tell her friends about it.

They’ll want to read it too.

They’ll borrow it and laugh out loud too, though they might not hiccup.

They’ll all want to read more and more books and laugh and gasp and set off on adventures in imaginary worlds through words.

Their parents will search for these worlds for them in books at another library book sale.

But first, they’ll donate this book back to the library,

Who’ll put it in their next book sale.

A dad will buy it for his son…

The Friends of Silver Lake Library Book Sale is Saturday April 25 from 9:30am to 3pm (http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/friends-library-used-book-sale-2).