Soaring book sales
Just a week ago, Chelsea Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention revived interest for three book titles. She praised her mother for reading to her granddaughter, Charlotte. Their recurring favorite would be Chugga-Chugga Choo- Choo by Kevin Lewis, illustrations by Daniel Kirk.
Two other popular classics were also talked about in her speech: Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon. Chelsea recalled that Goodnight Moon was a book her mother read to her as a child. But then, A Wrinkle in Time was a book she read on her own and would not stop talking about it. “I remember one week talking incessantly about a book that had captured my imagination, A Wrinkle in Time. Only after my parents had listened to me would they then talk about what they were working on, education, healthcare, what was consuming their days and keeping them up at night.”
As Slate‘s Jacob Brogan writes:
When I checked Amazon’s sales stats for the two books just after Clinton mentioned them, ‘Goodnight Moon’ was at No. 55 on the site’s best-seller lists while ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ came in at No. 376. Since Amazon updates its public-facing comparative sales stats hourly, it’s not clear whether interest in the books spiked immediately. When I looked at the books again 12 hours later, their position had changed dramatically in the case of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic young adult novel. In the intervening time, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ had vaulted into the site’s Top 100 books list, landing at No. 85. ‘Goodnight Moon,’ meanwhile, had climbed into the Top 50, where it currently resides at No. 43.
Of the three books, it was A Wrinkle in Time that caught my interest most. It is a highly regarded science fantasy novel by American writer Madeleine L’Engle and won the Newbery medal in 1963. The story is about Meg Murry, an introverted high-school girl who is transported through time and space.Together with her genius younger brother Charles Wallace and friend Calvin O’Keefe rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from the evil forces that hold him prisoner on another planet. (Source: Sparknotes.com) The central theme talks about good fighting the evil, how love can conquer everything combining science fiction and fantasy.
I hope this book can serve as an inspiration for a new generation of smart girls to embrace their individuality.
References
To grab a copy of the above mentioned books, please go to Amazon. For a copy of the transcript of the Speech, you may refer here.