Being an author allows me opportunities to experience things that I would never have had the opportunity to experience. Case and point the email I received last week from an unknown Floridian.

When I opened my emails in my iPad, I observed a strange site. Attached at the bottom of the first email was a photo of my children’s book “The First Advent” opened to page 34 on the left while the page on the right, if I’m remembering how to count, should have been page 35. Instead, the page number was 43!? Are you following me?

Confused I turned to what this young lady from Florida said in her email. “Hello, I purchased your book, but it looks like there was a printing error as the book is missing pages 35-42. Can you please assist with getting us a book that is complete? This was purchased on Amazon. Thank you.”

Now I don’t have a lot of influence with Amazon plus I was not sure how to contact them. Since I did not have any proof who really purchased the book I sent Ms. Florida a return email that read like this: “Hi, I’m sorry you received an incomplete book, The First Advent. My fear is did all purchased books from Amazon have those same missing pages? I am going to mail you another copy of The First Advent with the missing pages intact. Plus, I autographed the book to make up for the hassle you had to go through. I hope the book adds joy to your Advent. Merry Christmas! 🙂

Now wasn’t that a smooth reply? 🙂

Later in the day Ms. Florida replied and the email read: “Thanks so much for responding so quickly and for arranging to send a replacement. We truly appreciate it! Hopefully there are not too many other copies coming from Amazon with this mistake. (I had purchased it last year.) We had read a page each day while opening one of our doors on our Advent calendar. This year we will get to hear the rest of the story!

Thanks again and have a Merry Christmas!”

What do you suppose my next move was? I went to Amazon online and ordered a copy of “The First Advent”. It should arrive Friday.

I’m praying the missing pages will have been replaced or I may receive many more questioning emails similar to this first one. Then I will find out how to make contact with Amazon so we can have a heart- to- heart talk! 🙁

Now what about the retired librarian mentioned in the title of this blog?

I had just recovered from the idea that thousands, (exaggeration), of “The First Advent” books may have been sent to families preparing to celebrate Advent and they would be disappointed when the exciting climax of the book could not be enjoyed.

Small children would be weeping, and parents would be hating Amazon. Hopefully I would be found innocent of any wrong- doing.

When the weekend arrived, I was selling books at a craft fair in Fargo, North Dakota.

The fear of missing pages in The First Advent had become a distant memory and I was enjoying sharing my books with shoppers.

And then the retired librarian approached and announced to me that she was indeed a retired librarian. That seemed to make her an authority on writing children’s books.

Now I had written my first children’s book manuscript in 1980 so now that it was 2022 I felt confident in my ability to write a successful children’s book.

I must not have exuded enough confidence to the retired librarian because she began giving me advice on how to write a children’s book.

Did she not realize that I have two children’s books published in the Ukraine in the Russian and Ukrainian languages? Did she not realize that made me an international author?

Her first words to me were, “Always talk to a second- grade teacher to determine the difficulty of words to use in your books.”

Then she proceeded to open my favorite book “Nature’s Christmas Story” and began telling me which words were too difficult for children to read!

The story takes place in Alaska where I was using tundra animals to tell the story and she pointed to lemming, arctic fox and arctic hare as words not suited for a second grader.

I didn’t say anything, but I was wondering how I could tell the story without using the animal’s names that lived there. Reading teaches the reader new words is my philosophy.

Then as quickly as she had come, she hurried off.

I was just relaxing and allowing my blood pressure to lower when I heard her voice as she came flying up to my table again.

She grabbed Nature’s Christmas Story and said, “You should open the book up and display these beautiful illustrations.”

The book would not cooperate, and the pages wouldn’t remain open, so she grabbed the display stand and tried to keep the pages flat and opened with the stand.

It failed so she gave up and as she was departing shared with me that self-published authors have closets full of unsold books.

I should have shared with her that I was sitting at my booth selling my books so that I didn’t have a closet full of books. 🙂 That part of being an author is termed ‘marketing’!

So, it has been quite a week! Donating an Advent book to a disappointed Floridian while trying to remain civil to a retired librarian.

Also, during this week, I was able to have my new book of rhymes, Say That Again, edited by the publisher while I discussed the artwork with my favorite artist Janine Ringdahl Schmidt.

An author’s work is never done! 🙂

Until next time.