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Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke with Star Lowe of 

Star Lowe is really busy — or, as they say in Chattanooga, she is "scattered, smothered, covered and chunked."

She opened her downtown bookstore just over a year ago, and has been "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" ever since. She's barely even had time to read — which is why she started Star Line Books in the first place.

But when a children's book landed on her desk this month, she dropped everything.

It's called "A Child of Books," and its written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. It tells the story, in sweeping illustrations, of a little girl who sails her raft across a sea of words. Those words in the waves will be familiar to older readers — the waters are made up of quotes from nursery rhymes, lullabies and children's classics like "The Wind in the Willows." 

The little girl meets a boy on the shore, and calls him on to new adventures.

The book is a giant love letter to reading, which is just what Lowe needed.

"I have read less in the last two years than I've read since I learned to read," she said. "The beauty of children's books and short stories and poems — it's that I can read those in one sitting and feel like, 'Yes! I am getting something read!'

"This is a great book, and it's going to entertain children, but it's also going to reaffirm for adult readers why we do it — why we read and why we love it so."

A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers & Sam Winston Book Trailer

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Ask a bookseller

Tracy Mumford

Author

This week, a bookseller bogged down by her busy schedule recommends a children's book that reaffirmed her love of reading.

Ask a Bookseller: Star Line Books in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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