Drum roll, please.
And the winner is: TRAVIS HERRICK
For his lovely rendition of that old classic: THE CHICKEN AND THE RACCOON
But don't take it from me. Here is Travis, in his own words:
"I read this book over the last several days and I have to
say, it really reminds me of the old folk tale of the Chicken and the Raccoon.
Once, a long time ago, in the American Heartlands, there
lived a Chicken and Raccoon, and they were the best of friends. The Chicken was very industrious, and worked
very hard each and every day. The
raccoon did the minimal amount of work he needed to get by, and spent his days
listening to hipster music and lounging around wearing sunglasses.
But even thought there were very different, the Chicken and Raccoon
were close friends, and they shared the love of books.
One Day, the Chicken came up to his good friend
Raccoon. “Raccoon, I have been feeling
down. I feel that I’ve spent all my time
at the office without doing any of the important things in life. Part of me wants to be like you, because
you’re always so happy and seem like deep down, you’re satisfied with
life. But all you do is slack off and
listen to annoying music and wear sunglasses all day.”
Raccoon took off his headphones and thought for a long
time. He looked at Chicken and said
“Well, you work hard. You’d hate my
life; what you have to realize is that all you have to do is be yourself to be
happy. You don’t need to change yourself
to be satisfied.”
Well the years passed, and Chicken never became more
satisfied with his life, whereas Raccoon always was. Raccoon was unable to help his friend,
because he didn’t realize what the problem was.
Of course, as readers of The Serpent’s Storm will surely know by this
point, Raccoon had read it while Chicken didn’t. The Chicken was never able to appreciate the
snarkiness of Amber Benson’s writing, the cleverness of her world, her engaging
characters. Chicken will never know the
plight of Callie and how she grows as a person to be less insecure and more
willing to take over her responsibilities.
He will never know the turmoil of Callie not knowing who to trust, or the
catharsis of her victory. And without
knowing about The Serpent’s Storm, how could he possibly have experienced the
beauty and wonder the world has to offer?
Sadly, Raccoon had assumed that he had read this book, as who wouldn’t,
so he said nothing, and Chicken went his whole life never knowing.
The moral of the fable, as always, is to not be like
Chicken. Buy Amber Benson’s book."
Travis will not be picking a song for me to sing. Instead, I will be writing a personal poem for Travis and then putting it up on my youtube page.
Congrats, Travis!!
