Thread by @bookhistories

Imagine a children’s picture book based on #Darnton’s communication circuit (with a twist). This is what it would look like. A thread.

The plot is fairly simple. A kid buys a book and wants to express her gratitude to its maker, which she’ll soon realise is much easier said than done. First stop is at the bookshop where she buys the book in question.

She tracks down the author and thanks her for writing it. “Don’t thank me” she replies. “I wrote the story but others made the actual book” (shout-out to Roger Stoddard). “Thank the one who made the book.”

She finds the smartly dressed publisher and thanks him, vividly. “Don’t think me. I just made sure that it was printed.” Not sure that accurately describes the role of a #publisher, but hey. “Thank the one who printed it.”

Now it gets a bit weird. She thanks the printing press and it responds (!) “Don’t thank me, I needed paper in order to print it. Thank the ones who gave me paper.”

She then thanks the ones who has transported the paper, and obviously it has travelled very far, by ferry, train, and truck.

“Don’t thank us, we just transported the rolls of paper. Thank the ones who gave it to us.” I assume this is the driver speaking or something, but not sure.

“Thank you for my book” the kid says to the paper factory workers, who look like they are about to conduct some serious high-school level science projects. “Thank the ones who supplied the wood so we could make wood pulp.”

She then proceeds to thank the logs, for some reason. “Don’t thank us”, the logs reply. “We just drifted down the river to the wood pulp factory. We’re just a minor part of something much bigger, which you should thank instead.”

She then heads to the forest and thanks the trees. Not sure why they differentiate between logs and trees, but okay. “Don’t thank us” yada yada... “We required certain things in order to grow.”

Then she starts to express her gratitude to the earth, rain and the sunshine, no less. “Don’ thank us, thank the one who made us…”

“…GOD.” Boom.🤯

This is a Swedish edition of Patricia and Victor R. Smeltzer’s ‘Thank you for a book to read’, published by Libris/Normans in Örebro, Sweden and printed by New Interlitho S P A in Milan, 1980.

@dbellingradt