Handwritten Book By 8-Year-Old Now Has Years-Long Waitlist At Library

The boy's “sneaky act” has received praise from Christopher Burgess, who worked with the Central Intelligence Agency for more than 30 years.

An eight-year-old in the US state of Idaho wrote a children's book and covertly sneaked it into the local library's shelf without permission. Soon, the book became a hit with readers and now the book has a long waiting list. Dillon Helbig, a second-grader who lives in Idaho, finished writing the Christmas adventure story in his notebook in mid-December. He wanted people to read it so he hatched a plan and waited to pull it off. During a visit to the library in his city Boise with his grandmother, he quietly slipped the 88-page book into the children's picture-book shelf. Nobody saw him do that, not even his grandmother. ????️ I know a certain three-letter agency that is always looking for folks with skills like Dillion's ????️"81-page book to his chest and passed by the librarians. Then, unbeknown to his grandmother, Dillon slipped the book onto a children's picture-book shelf. Nobody saw him do it" pic.twitter.com/laxxJaHifj This is flipping awesome. We need more kids like Dillon, and more books authored by kids in this world...{tips hat to Dillon} This is the best news story I've ever read. 81 pages!! Wow!

Later, however, Dillon Helbig told his mother, Susan Helbig, about it. Two days later, they went to the library but the book was missing. They called the library to urge them to not throw it away. To their surprise, the book had been a hit among readers. The Ada Community Library's Lake Hazel Branch shared the incident on their Facebook page. The library said the book – titled “The Adventures of Dillon's Crismis” – has won the 2021 Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist, a category the library created for him.

The library branch manager Alex Hartman told The Washington Post, “It was a sneaky act.” But the book “was far too obviously special an item for us to consider getting rid of it,” Mr Hartman added. The book has a 55-person waitlist at the library, which allows patrons to hold onto books for up to four weeks.