The Great Green Hope

Okay, so if you have kids under the age of 5, you might know him as "Boz, the Friendly Green Bear Next Door"(TM) and have listened to him teach numbers and colors and shapes and also gratitude prayers and show how God's world is good. In fact, you probably know more about Boz than I do if you have children younger than 5 years old. But I did something today I'm pretty sure most of you haven't, I actually met Boz. Not only met, but had my picture taken with (no you will not be seeing it here and if I can get my hands on the Polaroid(TM) neither will any one else) the Green Bear Next Door (TM), and spent a grand two hours watching his smallest fans have a chance to meet him in person too.

I went in to work early today so I could take pictures of the event while my co-workers who were on shift took care of actually running the store. There were so many adorable little kids, but one in particular stood out. He was the first one there with his Mom this morning, waiting to meet Boz(TM) and he was dressed in a green and blue striped shirt and he bought his own Boz(TM)plushie along for the visit with out 'real' Boz. He was very polite and listened to his mother as best he could, getting his picture taken and hugging Boz(TM) and claiming his stickers and picture with a big smile, but that wasn't enough for this fan. Oh, no. Every opportunity that presented itself for him go to back and hug Boz(TM) he took. He didn't push his way in, or make other kids wait, but any time he saw a moment to go back and be with Boz(TM) there he was. And because of his zeal for this Friendly Green Bear, he got to dance with Boz(TM) and sing with Boz(TM) and pray with Boz(TM) too. All because he had decided that time with his favorite character was worth waiting around for, and because he just couldn't get enough of his hero. The other children were either shy and didn't really want to go back for extra hugs or were more interested in other things in the store, but that little guy was tenacious and having gone back to the children's section with his mother twice, he'd decided everything he wanted was up front, and everything he wanted was Boz(TM).

No wonder Jesus used children as examples, I wish I had half the determination that little one had to spend time with Christ that he had to spend with the Green Bear Next Door.

Another good thing that came out of my going up there to take pictures is that we are going to do a direct mail-out to customers who bought fantasy books about the signing like we did for this Boz(TM) event. I had been half asking for such a thing for over a week but wasn't really getting anywhere with it till today because we could see what the turn out was from direct mail verses turn out from radio ads. So, now we are going to do both radio ads and direct mail, and I am delighted. Also, the staff in the main store are beginning to plot how to decorate and what to do on Saturday and how to make the authors feel at home.

This is fantastic, this is what I had hoped for!

And we are going to be able to put the authors up front, not in the back though it does mean splitting them up which would be better anyway I think. The only stipulation the owner made is that the two authors we carry and sell well are not to be set together, the lesser knowns are to be paired with the 'known sellers' so that means that Bryan Davis and Wayne Thomas Batson are not to be at the same table. Somehow, if they aren't exhausted, I see them having fun with this.

Thanks for all your continuing prayers---we also received today the promotional DVD and bagstuffer/ bookmarks for the tour. I haven't seen the DVD (Boz played all day) but the bookmarks are handsome! I snitched a couple for myself.