Our... barrel... runneth over: many thanks to our co-conspirators in this monkey business.

As Michelle mentioned in her post yesterday, we'd like to thank all of you who came in Sunday for our Alison Paul signing/Valentine's Day party! We had such a good time decorating V-Day burglar masks, seeing your "hardened criminal" faces in your mugshots, and coveting the mouth-watering sundaes you designed.

We also need to extend great big grateful thank yous to Alison herself, her publishing team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and our neighbors at Uno's Chicago Grill!

Alison not only wrote and illustrated the hilarious tale of a burglar and his true love, ice cream (bringing a new meaning to the phrase "sticky fingers"), but also dressed as a swanky burglar herself, brought a life-size Bruno, and read Sunday Love with all its sound effects. HMH people came out to lend Alison moral support, and we put them to work taking pictures. Uno donated ice cream and toppings, and their marketing coordinator hung out to serve it. It was awesome to have so many people outdoing themselves to make this event a huge success! Thank you!

And I seem to have a fairy godmother or godfather at Penguin. After Incarceron last week, another review book mysteriously arrived for me on Monday. This one is The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, which will be out in just a few weeks. I'm not at the store for the next couple of days, so I'll read them and report back. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, nice Penguin person!