A Mini Book Date
A trip to McNally Jackson with my five-and-a-half year old sister, Tasmin.
Hello! Happy Friday! My baby sister is in town with my parents (my dad and my stepmom) and C had the brilliant idea that I should take her on a book date. Taszie and I have been reading together since she was a baby and it’s one of my favorite things to do together. C and I met up with her cousin after they watched Inside Out 2 and we walked over to the McNally Jackson in South Street Seaport. They have a very cute kids reading room—way more hang-out friendly than the one in Williamsburg—and we spent the better part of an hour flipping through books. Afterward, we bought overpriced ice-cream from a truck ($22 for a vanilla cone with sprinkles, a Powerpuff girls ice cream bar and two waters!1) and caught the sunset. Read about our date, below!
Please state your name for the record.
Tasmin Hurst.
Where are you from?
Maryland.
How old are you?
Five and a half.
What do you do?
Make friends at school. Can I do a cartwheel? She does a cartwheel.
Wooooow! What sports do you play?
Soccer, basketball, swimming, gymnastics and lacrosse.
What’s your favorite?
All of them. And I’m about to do dance.
Are you excited to go to kindergarten?
I’m already a kindergartener.
Really? When did that happen?
The last day of school.
What are you going to do in kindergarten?
Language and math. And challenging work. Like dictionaries. Drawing is challenging.
Do you like to draw?
Yeah, I like to draw pictures but I don’t know what to draw.
What do you like to do in school?
Read books.
What’s your favorite book?
The Elephant and Piggie Books. And this one. She lifts up the book we’re going to buy. She is a good reader but C helps her with the title. “Knuffle Bunny,” C whispers. Knuffle Bunny. By, Mo Williams?
Mo Willems? That’s the same person who writes Elephant and Piggie!
Mo Willems? Mommy! That’s the same person who writes Elephant and Piggie. I called him Mo Williams. She laughs because mistakes are funny.
Do you read at school?
I do books and do work.
Do you have a book at school you like to read?
What’s a cool thing that happened at school?
We ate popsicles on the last day of school.
Who’s your favorite teacher?
Ms. Davis and Ms. Reynolds. And Mr. Schott. He teaches us different songs like Tropical Island and sometimes he lets us do drums.
Who’s your favorite person to read with?
Both.
Do you like to read by yourself or for someone to read with you?
I like people reading to me.
Do you like to read books with a lot of pictures or a lot of words?
Pictures and words.
Super-colorful books or black and white?
Super colorful.
Animals or people?
Both.
When you read books does it make you happy or sad?
Sometimes it’s sad, sometimes it’s happy. Sometimes it has a sad ending, sometimes it has a happy ending.
Which one do you like better?
Happy!
What’s a book that made you feel happy?
What about a funny book?
What’s a book you thought was funny?
The book we just read. Knuffle Bunny.
Who’s your favorite character in a book?
Gerald from Elephant and Piggie.
How many Elephant and Piggie books do you have?
The whole collection!
How many books do you have in total?
392.
Thank you for letting me interview you Moms. I love you.
I love you too.
That’s all for now! There will be two grown-up book dates next month that I’m very excited about. Until then, happy reading.
My stepmom would like the record to reflect that Tasmin has way more than 39 books. This has been fact-checked by yours truly through the experience of going home and also buying her many, many books.
This is the cutest thing I've read on the internet today!
team taszie 4 life!