From reading the slush pile at work I can testify that at least one person in the world has come up with an idea for a picture book about how to blow your own nose and someone else has thought up one to explain why Mom has PMS. I don’t quite buy this notion that there ought to be a children’s book for every occasion, issue, fact of life, or philosophy, but all the same I’m kind of tickled that It’s Just a Plant has become fully realized. This is my favorite page:
“Marijuana,” smiled her mom, “is a plant.”
“What kind of plant?” said Jackie.
“Well,” said Mom, “That story might take all night for me to tell you. How about we go on a bicycle ride tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it? Have you ever looked at a bicycle wheel spinning for like, a really long time, until it looks like it’s not spinning at all, except it is, and maybe that’s how it is with the earth, you know, the planet, because it spins way faster than that but you can’t even tell, right, because it’s really, um, big and stuff, and oh man, wait a second, you know how sometimes you can’t find things in your house, like when you have a sandwich, and you put it down somewhere and you can’t find it again, and yeah, it’s like that. Hey, are you hungry? Isn’t it weird how plants eat but you never see them do it?”
(A lot of typos, though. You’d think some copyeditor would be willing to proofread in exchange for an eighth.)
