A funny thing happened on the way to the Hedgehog Party. Last month (Shelf Awareness, June 4, 2010), author Brunonia Barry wrote about her favorite bookstore, the Spirit of '76, Marblehead, Mass., in a blog post at She Is Too Fond of Books and "happened to mention 
that I own a pet hedgehog named Stanley who occasionally visits the store," noted store manager Hilary Emerson Lay.
Lay was surprised to hear shortly after from someone at the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet program, who had "read the blog--totally randomly. Animal Planet happens to have a studio just outside Boston, and they happen to be filming for a new show called Pets 101, which will be about people who own exotic and unusual pets. Animal Planet called me up and asked if they could film me and Stanley at the bookstore. They loved the idea that Stanley was an integral part of our bookselling community (I bring him in for story hours, and we visit classrooms around town)."
During the interview, Lay mentioned that the bookshop had recently hosted a Hedgehog Party and "they were charmed by the idea, and asked me to throw another such party for them to film." 
Despite less than two weeks to organize the event, Spirit of '76 is throwing a Hedgehog Party today from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. "and Animal Planet will be there filming us," Lay said. "I am going to talk about hedgehogs as pets, show everyone Stanley, and read some of Jan Brett's hedgehog books. I am making hedgie-shaped cookies and even a hedgehog watermelon. We also rented the Jan Brett hedgie costume, so he will be making an appearance as well. I have 40 kids coming (plus 40 parents), reporters and photographers from local papers, and I have already had to turn away more than 50 families who wanted to come (we simply do not have the space)."