How Tui T. Sutherland made my 10-year-old do happy bounces

How great it is when one of your most favorite authors says that you and your book reading pals "sound like essentially THE COOLEST PEOPLE EVER."  Pretty darn great, no matter how old you are, but when you are ten, and authors are still quasi-mythical beings, even more so.   My ten-year-old loves Tui T. Sutherland's books (the Wings of Fire series, The Menagerie, and the Warriors books), so when I showed him this post at her blog, much happy bouncing ensued.   And of course he was also excited to see the cover of the sequel to The Menagerie:

It is lovely to have a kid with whom I can share books.  This past week he read Seven Sorcerers, and its sequel, Shadow Spell, by Caro King (great books), and loved them, and was chirp chirp chirping away about them yesterday.  Gratifying.   Having succeed so will with this recommendation, I tried to get him to promise to read the next book I offered him, without telling him what it would be, because if he knew the book was called The Runaway Princess (by Kate Coombs; here's my take on its sequel, The Runaway Dragon), and saw the girl-oriented cover, he might refuse to even try it.  He was suspicious.  I said that it should be called A Really Good Book About a Kid Making Friends with a Dragon, but he wouldn't bite.  And then I told him the real title....and he is very doubtful.  I know he would love it, so it is frustrating, but I still have hope.  I can always bribe him with double chocolate milanos.