What’s cool about jelly bands?

Look what the UPS man brought me today:

500 packages of book bands! Each package (see picture below) contains two Boxcar Children book bands (the red boxcar on the left), two Buddy Files book bands (the yellow dog in the middle) and two Zapato Power book bands (the purple tennis shoe with lightning on the right).

I can’t say I get why these jelly band things are cool (neither does my dog, apparently). I’m actually wearing an entire package of these things right now while I’m typing this entry. I’ve moved them around on my arm, changed the order, and I still don’t get it. What’s cool about them is my publisher made them to go along with my series! Anything the publisher makes to go along with one of my books is cool! But why would anyone other than me want them? And what am I going to do with 500 packages of them???

I’ll give them away at school visits, the Iowa Library Association conference in October, and the David Collins Children’s Literature Festival in November. Mouse and I can hand them out at our next R.E.A.D. session at the library. And I should definitely take some to the girls down the street who told their mom that they are not too old for the Buddy Files because “the main character is a dog and dogs are for everybody!” (They’re sweet!) Maybe THEY can tell me what’s so cool about book bands?

Hey, here’s another thought. Maybe I should take a basket of them to my son’s former elementary school and tell the librarian that the kids can take one if they enter my little contest that I just thought up as I was writing this blog entry. In 100 words or less, I want the kids to tell me why jelly bands are cool…the best response gets a signed ARC of Buddy Files #1.