Abearcalledpaddington liked my post!

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I'm trying to get myself out there on instagram more and more and make more of an impact. I've liked so many teacher instagrammers in the past few days it's crazy. Thankfully it's paying off. I'm getting followed back, and liked and even sold another product! The true highlight of my week though was being liked by the instagram account "abearcalledpaddington". I don't know why a fictional account for a fictional book character could make me so happy, but it did. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the account is not my main target (teachers), and therefore acts as some form of proof that I am reaching a wider audience.

It also served as a reminder that I am doing something and all my work is not in vain. It can get challenging in the early days of blogging, selling on TpT etc. (as I'm sure many of you already know). But it's these little victories that remind us to keep going and give us reasons to continue. It can be so tempting to throw in the towel, and truthfully it's easier to do that too. But I'm going to persevere through this one because I really want it and I really believe that reading is so integral to a child's development, and if I can make novel studies a little more fun for one or two kids then I've done my job.

I'm also working on diversifying my line of products. Paddington is lovely and all and super fun to read, but I thought it was time for a change. So now I'm working on a Ramona Quimby project. Similar in style to my Paddington line, but geared for a little older age group. I never read Ramona as a child, and now I so wish I had.

This project is so much fun because it's allowing me to really appreciated children's literature. It is such a broad and diverse genre. As a child I read a lot, but not a lot of variety. I finished series, I read lots of Junie B. Nate the Great, and Cam Jansen. I never gave one thought to reading Ramona, or Enid Blyton, or Paddington, to be honest I wasn't even aware of Ms. Blyton until I started working at a local bookstore in my teens. I also plan to go back to some of those Junie B.'s Nate's and Cam's in the near future and build some products around them. But for now I'm really enjoying the hijinks and adventures of Ramona and Paddington.