Barbara Park, RIP

I am working on a large and unruly post (related to Michael Walker's What You Want Is In The Limo -- among many, many other things) and it, alas, cannot be pared down into individual installments.

So here is this week's post: a lamentation at the passing of Barbara Park, whose Junie B. Jones books were the light of this family's life for a crucial stretch of years when the only words we read were shortly before the kids' bedtime -- and thus our own. Those books were so funny, and so touching, and so filled with life. Adults and children alike went to bed giggling, or dabbing at stray tears, thanks to Barbara Park, at a stage in life when it was all a grown-up could do to keep up with the laundry.

Barbara Park made the world a better place for everyone to live in. God love you, woman.



CBC "I'm not actually sure I'm grown-up enough for grown-up books": NYT.