That was almost 60 years ago. The cookie was his first home-baked one, and it came at just the right moment. The boy grew up to be "Famous" Amos, the celebrated cookie maker. Amos, who lives in Kailua, never forgot the taste of those chocolate-chip cookies nor his Aunt Della, the woman who provided a home for him after his parents' divorce.

"These weren't just any chocolate-chip cookies, although my aunt probably followed the recipe on the chocolate-chip bag," Wally Amos told me. "These were special cookies. They were baked with love."

Now before you, dear reader, having found your way to this page by wading through the sad-bad news of the day, raise one cynical eyebrow, take a moment to reflect on what Wally has just said.

What made all the difference, what continues to make all the difference in the world is doing something with love and sharing that love with those around you.

This book wasn't born overnight. It has a long history, going back to the late 1980s, when Amos' wife Christine first created the Chip and Cookie characters.

Over the years, a story evolved about Chip and Cookie's first adventure in the land of vanilla ponds, buttercup fields and brown-sugar deserts. A final version was written by the Amos' friend, the self-styled Dr. Lindamichellebaron, whose doctorate is in education. Then the story was illustrated by Leslie Harrington, who used bright, computer-generated colors to bring a 1930s-button-eyed cast of characters to life (and who even included on one page a tiny 1948 photo of Aunt Della and Wally).

But the book is only part of a campaign conceived by Wally. Besides the book, there are also dolls to buy at www.chipand cookie.com. Now put that other cynical eyebrow down — especially these days when every other book comes with an action figure, stuffed toy or a Christmas bell. Chip and Cookie have a greater purpose. They're ambassadors of reading.

Amos uses Chip and Cookie, his book and all his energy to promote literacy not just here in Hawai'i but all over the country. Chip and Cookie will be featured in a 30-second public-service announcement done by the Hawai'i Student Film Festival in conjunction with Lynne Waihe'e's Read To Me International. And at Savannah College of Art Design, students are planning on using Chip and Cookie for a social awareness project on literacy in their graphic design department. The goal will be to create comprehensive advertising and marketing strategy and perhaps even a short film or cartoon.

Wally's dream right now (please understand that "dream" for this positive-thinking man means "vision") is to open a store in Kailua for Chip and Cookie. This store will be filled with the fragrance of freshly baked cookies as well as the smell of books. It will be a library, a read-aloud center and a cookie store all rolled into one.

"Wouldn't it be great if the store opened this March? That would be 30 years ago to the month that I first launched Famous Amos Cookies on Sunset Boulevard back in 1975," he said.

Although a March opening might seem impossible to us, nothing is impossible for this man. That's another lesson to be learned from reading "No More Chocolate Chips" — think positive, even in hard times. It is a lesson that Wally learned some 60 years ago standing in Aunt Della's kitchen, eating his first chocolate-chip cookie and looking over the streets of New York from her tiny apartment. When life is mixed with love, anything is possible.

This is the essence of Wally Amos' life. Go talk to him about it. He'll be doing book signings starting Wednesday at 12:30 at Bestsellers, downtown. He'd love to meet you. And I mean it.