Why I Will Never Ever Ever Ever Have Enough Time to Read This Book: 02/20/10

When I was a child, my all time favorite book was a book of poetry and drawings by Remy Charlip called Arm in Arm. I still love the book and will read through it whenever I need a pick-me-up. Charlip has written many other books but for some reason I didn't read any of his others in my childhood. Now though when I see one of his books, I grab it. My most recent find was Why I Will Never Ever Ever Have Enough Time to Read This Book.

Besides the lure of it being written by Remy Charlip, the title had me in stitches. It must be the book blogger in me. Or maybe it's my obscenely large to be read pile. Or the wishlist that's two or three times as long as the to be read pile. Let's just say I completely relate to the title.

Better yet though, Charlip's picture book is a metafiction (just as Hand in Hand is metapoetry). The book is story and the story is the book. Whether or not the main character reads the book doesn't preclude her from experiencing everything contained within it's covers. Recursively, the main character within the book is also experiencing the same events and so on and so forth.

I read the book with my son. We took turns reading pages and I know he got some of the silliest and most blatant examples of the self referential plot but I haven't won him over yet to the awesomeness that is a Remy Charlip book. I loved the book; he merely liked it.

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