We were invited to Erica Perl’s Aces Wild book party last weekend, and what fun it was. Aces Wild is the sequel to the delightful When Life Gives You O.J., a story about a gal named Zelly who wants a dog very, very badly. Her grandfather constructs a plan to help Zelly get one, and it involves an empty orange juice jug, a leash, and a whole lot of chutzpah. You should go out and get Aces Wild, but make sure to read When Life Gives You O.J. first because you are going to love these characters.
Among the Aces Wild themed cupcakes, and the Politics and Prose table set up to sell copies, there were also plenty of crafts for the kids to work on in celebration of Perl’s book. Hadley and Harper each made an, ehem, dog for themselves.
They even got to name their new pets.
Get it? LEASH-A? Clever, no? She came up with that one all by herself.
The party was so much fun, and we were glad to be there. I know Erica from a class she taught at The Writers Center in Bethesda, and she was kind enough to write a letter of recommendation for me for graduate school. But mostly, she’s a great story teller. We have almost all of her books, Vintage Veronica, Dotty, O.J, Aces Wild. We’re missing her Chicken Butt books (much to Hadley’s disappointment), but we check them out of the library frequently.
Here’s a picture of Hadley reading Chicken Butt:
And here she is listening to Erica read a section from Aces Wild. This picture reminds me of Hadley years ago – she was about seven months old – when we were at the library for story time. We were supposed to hold our children in our laps while the librarian read a story or played a song, I can’t remember which. Hadley wouldn’t have any of that sitting on mommy’s lap business. She sat herself front and center.
The story is going to be great, I can tell (we are re-reading OJ to the girls first). The grandfather’s in it again, one of my favorite characters, and of course Zelly who I think has already had an impressive impact on Hadley and Harper’s imagination.
That’s my kind of friend.
Sounds wonderful! 🙂 I checked with our local library…I was hoping they’d have the OJ book or Aces Wild (since my kids are dog lovers!) but no luck. They do have Dotty and the Chicken Butt books, so we’re going to check those out!
Kelly, Dotty is my all time favorite, but I like all of them. OJ was so cute and I can’t wait to read Aces. I hope you can get your hands on a copy!