Brown Paper Packages Filled Up With Books
I have always loved to send surprise care packages to loved ones, but is it weird to send a care package containing children’s books you didn’t write* to a grown man you’ve never met?
There was a time when just the hint of that question would have made me not go through with it. However, I’m just so completely worn out by the darkness in the world right now that I had to do something to dig up a little light. The hope is, of course, that I’m bringing light to the receiver, but even if he never sees or he never reads, it made me and my family feel good to do something that has the potential to break through the unrelenting darkness.
Ever since the election, my family has sought solace in Golden State Warriors basketball. Instead of our hopes being dashed by the bad we’re seeing in the White House, we are having our hopes uplifted by what we see in the entire Warriors team and organization.
The Warriors have been a light to us, and it was time to try and give a little of that light back to one Warrior who might have need of it these days.
Dear Coach Kerr,
I don’t know if you will ever see or have time to read this. To some degree, I hope that you won’t, if that makes any sense. I know you’ve been getting lots of advice, recommendations, and all manner of cure-alls from millions of concerned Warriors fans. That’s not quite what this is.
As a writer and author, I feel that there’s very little a good book can’t make a bit more bearable. I’m not saying books cure everything, but they can help when you’re dealing with more than you’re used to, especially in a world of divided attention spans.
And as a children’s writer, specifically, I do feel that children’s books can affect your life deeply at any age. Whether they affected your life as a kid; as someone just passing through a bookstore; or if you feel that effect when you read them to your own kids, children’s books have a way of getting to and distilling core truths of life. And that’s what makes them both incredibly beautiful as well as meditative. It’s also why educators encourage that people read children’s books well into high school and beyond. The effect they have on the brain is significant but usually overlooked.
That’s how I explain two of the books here, chosen by my own small Warriors fans, for the truths and beauty they contain. They are also the kinds of books you can read over and over without tiring of them. One for the message of waiting and patience, and the other for trying to click open each lock on the incredible mystery of language.
As for the other, chosen by my husband and myself, that gives another kind of beauty: laughter. I have never laughed as hard reading a book as I have reading this one. There’s one story in particular that caused me to set the book down to get a tissue: I couldn’t read for the laughing tears. You’ll find it.
We hope we will soon see you back doing what you love. But no matter how soon and no matter how long it takes, we will be content to wait until you’re ready.
Your fans aren’t going anywhere.
Best to you, your family, and the Warriors.
The Lucianovic Family
*Dr. M thought I should have added a copy of Suffering Succotash, but while I drew the line at that sort of self-promotion, I don’t draw the line at linking to it here!
