Happy Birthday, Mr. Schu

True story (for those of you who know me now, this part will be hard to believe, I'm sure):  I was a very dweeby kid in grade school. A very dweeby kid who moved around. A lot. (5 grade schools, 2 jr.  highs, 2 high schools). A very dweeby kid with bad hair. Bad eyes. And a name that would make school bullies think they had died and gone to heaven at being presented with such awesome teasing material: Kirby Miltenberger. 

Proof of dweebiness

I survived childhood thanks to an awesome family (well, except for my parents being naming challenged) and caring school librarians. No matter what the first day of school held for me, I knew that if I could find the school library, I could find a friend-- between the covers of a book.

So when Mary Ann Scheuer, creator of the site Great Kids Books, asked for ideas about helping celebrate Mr. Schu's birthday, it was a no brainer. Oh, you ask -- who is Mr. Schu? He is one of many uber-librarians across this great country who help connect kids with books; he also has two book-related blogs. Mr. Schu's like a circus barker only instead of trying to get you to spend money to see the five-legged frog, he's trying to get you to read about frogs, in stories like The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester.

Anyway, his birthday was this past weekend and folks wondered how to celebrate it and it seemed natural to ask his nine million friends to donate in his honor to First Book and then Jenni Holm who is obviously looking for ways to put off working on her current novel-in-progress suggested we should make video birthday messages for him and Winston said, "I'm in" so we're part of the Mr. Schu love fest, too.

If you don't know Mr. Schu, that is A-Okay. You can donate to First Book in honor of the school librarian you know and love.

Partee!