I hope you and you classes enjoyed the blog. I certainly enjoyed keeping in touch.

As a former primary school teacher, you may be the only one who appreciates the final (Day 5) blog and our visit around Beverly Cleary’s neighborhood.

I really liked the playaway. It is not more expensive than an audiobook on CD and it is its own playing device, so you don’t need to download the audio book CDs onto an iPod. You can also plug speakers into it and have a whole group listen. Each playaway comes in a case (with earphones) that is the size of a paperback book. Even a book as long as Eragon – 24 hours of playing time – fits on one playaway. Personally, I think it’s a great new technology.

I thought that book, The Golden Rat, looked really exciting. I haven’t read it yet. If you’re interested, I’ll let you read it first, okay?

One of the Space Needle tour guides told us that over this past summer, some idiot threw a soda bottle from the Observation Deck and it destroyed a car. Good thing it didn’t hit a person. The culprit was caught and, according to the tour guide, suffered for his crime.

You are very welcome for the autographed book.

We did not get to the Market, but I loved Seattle and plan to come back for another visit.

A playaway costs as much as an audiobook on CD, between $20 and $50, depending on the length of the recording.

I have come across so many great new (and upcoming) books!

I also picked up and We Beat the Street publisher’s reading group guide for you.

The book, Someone Named Eva, seems to be inspired by a real story about Aryan-looking children who were kidnapped by the German government, had their names changed and were forced to serve as Aryan models for the Nazi government. Sounds interesting, huh?

Did I mention the chocolate CDs that one exhibitor was giving out … ?

Sincerely, Grant