Tom Burns is a husband, a dad and a veteran of the educational publishing industry, living just outside of Detroit Rock City. After years of obsessing about what his daughter was reading, he founded BuildingaLibrary.com, a website devoted to helping parents find the right books for their kids. He's served as a contributing editor for 8BitDad.com and The Good Men Project, and his writing has been featured on Brightly, Time Magazine, Reading Rainbow, The Huffington Post, xoJane, and various other sites. He's also been featured in the Random House book "A Letter to My Mom" and made appearances on The Meredith Vieira Show and HuffPost Live.
What was your favorite childhood toy?
Hands down, it was the 1970s Fisher Price Sesame Street playset—the one with the replica of Gordon's brownstone, Ernie and Bert's apartment and Mr. Hooper's store. And it had those amazing Little People versions of Big Bird, the Count, Oscar and the older characters like Sherlock Hemlock and Roosevelt Franklin. I called them my "Fellas" and played with them endlessly. Fortunately, Santa was able to find one on eBay and my daughter got her very own Sesame Street under the X-Mas tree when she was 1 year old. She still loves it.
