I was signing a first grader’s copy of Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig a few days ago, and the first grader said to me, “Um, I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but every Mercy Watson book ends exactly the same way. Everybody just sits around a table and eats toast with a great deal of butter on it.”

I said, “I have noticed it. It took me awhile to figure out that that table (the table with everyone sitting around it eating and laughing and talking and being together) is the place that I head to with every story I write. It’s where I want the story to end up, because it’s where I want to be.”

“Oh,” said the first grader. “Okay.” She sighed. “But why do they have to eat so much butter?”

Here’s a picture of a painting of people around a table. It’s by Edouard Vuillard. It’s called Repast in a Garden.

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