Perhaps I overthink too much.

The other day I passed an animated screen on the side of a building. The Anne Stuyvesant Experience, it proclaimed. Step into the magical worlds imagined by the beloved children’s author. It was an art installation. The screen lingered variously on scenes of people walking through a light show of characters, fantastical and childlike and animal. Penny Cliff, but also Ellerie Rabbitt, The Bean People, and a lot more series I’d never heard of. November 3–6. Tickets Are Limited.

And I thought to myself, this sounds nice! You loved the Penny Cliff series when you were seven or eight.

But then I thought to myself, wait, that’s the only series you read by her. All the other exhibits, you won’t have a clue what’s happening there. Anne Stuyvesant’s written and illustrated dozens of series over a five-decade career, and she has a pretty devoted cult following. And tickets are limited. If you buy a ticket, that’s one ticket fewer in the ticket pool, one ticket which could have instead wound up in the hands of an Anne Stuyvesant superfan who would derive ten times more enjoyment out of this experience than you would.

Are there that many Anne Stuyvesant superfans? You don’t know, you literally haven’t spared a thought for her since elementary school. Your mum donated all your Penny Cliff books to some charity when you were going off to college and back then you were like, sure, whatever.

And then I thought to myself, yep, maybe this is not the experience you deserve. Move along now.

Perhaps I overthink too much.