I was sitting at a Sonic, dipping my plastic spoon into chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, when the song played. It was funny and I chuckled.

How clever.

I suppose I should have been a little embarrassed to be listening to my baby’s CD when he wasn’t even in the car. I wasn’t. How could I be?

Because … Sandra Boynton.

Despite having worked at a library as a teenager, I was first truly introduced to Sandra Boynton’s genius after college. It was love at first read. Years later, when I found out I was pregnant, one of the first things I did was go out and purchase a couple of her books for our little man. I had no idea she had created music, but when I saw a CD with the her name on it at a store, I bought it on the spot. I had set it aside, but that night in the Sonic parking lot, I put it in my car’s CD player on a whim.

And suddenly, I remembered again why I love words. Why kid lit is my favorite. Because the cadence and candor of a simple children’s story can speak to all of us.

This is why I write.

p.s. The song that made me chuckle? Copycat, sung by Brad Paisley. The song that took me back to my own childhood, when I could stare at a blade of grass or out a rain-drenched windowpane in quiet wonder? This one: