Inquiring Minds Want To Know

Some children's writers complain (sometimes at length) about children e-mailing them for help with their homework. A couple of days ago, I finally got one of those. A girl told me that she was supposed to read The Hero of Ticonderoga for a report but had had to return it to the library before she was finished. She said she had one question. "How many pages is it?"

I'm sorry. I thought it was funny.

I'm sure there are writers out there who would say, "Well, if you were a popular writer and received questions like that every day, dozens of questions like that every day, you wouldn't be laughing."

I hope I would.