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I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie

Wallace Yovetich

Staff Writer

Wallace Yovetich grew up in a home where reading was preferred to TV, playing outside was actually fun, and she was thrilled when her older brothers weren’t home so she could have a turn on the Atari. Now-a-days she watches a bit more TV, and considers sitting on the porch swing (with her laptop) “playing outside”. She still thinks reading is preferable to most things, though she’d really like to find out where her mom put that old Atari (Frogger addicts die hard). She runs a series of Read-a-Longs throughout the year (as well as posting fun bookish tidbits throughout the week) on her blog, Unputdownables. After teaching for seven years, Wallace is now an aspiring writer. Blog: Unputdownables Twitter: @WallaceYovetich

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How this super fly rapper would dance to the following song.

Each book I’ve picked up in the past couple of months has been a bit chunkier, and the song I danced so enthusiastically to during my middle school years has been popping into my head with new lyrics. Those of you recently afflicted by the Big-Book-Picker-Outer syndrome (or long time sufferers of it, whose yearly book numbers always lack because they just can’t help but pick out books that take extra time to read); this one’s for you…

To be sung to the tune of “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot

(Intro)

Oh, my, god. Becky, look at those books.
They’re so big.
They look like one of those book nerd’s fantasies.
But, you know, who understands those book nerds anyway?
They only read because they’re like total dorky intellectuals.
I mean that book, it’s just so hefty, it’s like, a door-stopper, I mean – gross. Look!
They’re just so… THICK!

(Reader aka Book Nerd)

I like big books and I cannot lie
you other people can’t deny
that when a book sits there with a crazy bunch of pages full of a plot for the ages
you get sprung;
wanna pull out your glasses cause you notice that book’s got mass(es).
Deep in the pages you’re reading –
you’re hooked and you can’t stop needing.
That book… you wanna get with it
just keep reading and never quit.
My bed time tries to warn me
but that plot it’s got makes me just wanna squee.
Ooh, Rumpelstiltskin
your story is just too thin!
So, read on, read on
cause this ain’t your average Don Juan.
I’m tired of the lyin’
there’s no denyin’ –
it’s big, it’s thick
got it going like a magic trick!
I’m tired of short book flings
big book commitments are the things.
Tolstoy, Bronte: would tell you that –
books gotta be real fat.

So, book nerds (yeah!) book nerds (yeah!)
Has your big book got the weight? (hell yeah!)
Then flip ’em (flip ’em!) flip ’em (flip ’em!)
Flip those fat book pages;
Big Books got game!