Dear Readers,

I just started a new novel by one of my favorite authors. Throughout your lifetime of reading you’ll meet favorite authors and look forward to their new books coming out. You’ll mark the publication date on your calendar and wish the days would skip ahead. Later, after endless waiting, you’ll see that it’s ready for you at the library or the bookstore, and you’ll rush there to pick it up. And finally, at long last, you’ll hold the book in your hands, run them over its cover, and smell the new pages before rushing out the door to get home to read it.

Novels combine various experiences of the world into one coherent story. Think of all the people we met and places we went with Edward Tulane: a fine house on Egypt Street, the bottom of the sea, the home of a fisherman and his wife, a garbage dump, tramping around with a hobo and his dog, a ramshackle cabin with two young children and an abusive father, a doll mender’s shop, and finally, at long last, back home.

Sincerely,

Mr. H