In Colorado, a nearly 90-year-old author of 32 books — former English professor Paul Levitt — had given up hope of ever seeing his name on a bestseller list.

In Utah, Salt Lake Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann was trying to uncover the name of a beloved book from his childhood.

Less than two weeks later, both have realized their ambitions.

The first domino to fall was a video that McCann posted to TikTok. In it, he described the vocabulary-building book his eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Polly Yates, had read to his class when he was a student at South Jordan Middle School in the 1990s. Did anyone know what he was talking about, he asked? Could someone help him find it?

Turns out, McCann’s more than 335,000 followers could.

“Within, like, an hour,” the Salt Lake City resident said Thursday, internet sleuths had identified the text — an out-of-print collection of short stories known as “The Weighty Word Book,” which first hit bookstores in 1985.

McCann — who recently published his own memoir, a collection of his Tribune columns titled “We’re Thankful for the Moisture” — posted his callout on May 10. Three days later, the book was the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon.

Since then, it has remained in the top 20, with the publisher — University of New Mexico Press — scurrying to reprint both it and its companion, “Weighty Words, Too.”

The publisher’s publicist, Sarena Ulibarri, did not provide exact sales figures. “But I can tell you that since Eli’s posts,” she said, “both…have sold approximately double what they sold” since the press acquired their rights in 2009.

‘You’re a TikTok sensation’

Levitt, who taught for decades at the University of Colorado, isn’t on TikTok. Elissa Guralnick, his former colleague and the one other surviving co-author of the book, wasn’t either — until now.

“I signed up,” the 77-year-old said, “a few days ago.”

But the two co-authors’ grandchildren and other young relatives are well acquainted with the video platform. That includes one of Guralnick’s grandnieces, who followed McCann even before this all unfolded.

According to her grandaunt, she was scrolling TikTok when she came across his post describing the book.

“She ran downstairs to tell her family, and they called me,” said Guralnick, who lives near Levitt in Colorado. “It was 11 o’clock at night and I said, ‘Why are you calling? Is something wrong?’ My nephew’s laughing and he goes, ‘No, you’re a TikTok sensation.’”

Even better than becoming heroes in the eyes of their Generation Z family members, Guralnick and Levitt said, is knowing that kids will be reading their work once again.

“After a lifetime of teaching,” Guralnick said, “I get to continue doing that through this book.”

Levitt described the whole affair as a “great kindness that has been visited upon me,” validation of decades of toil.

“It’s confirmation that all the work was worth it,” said the writer, who is currently crafting a piece of historical fiction. “It has been honest, decent labor.”

A tribute to teachers

Missing from all these celebrations has been the third co-author, Douglas Burger, a former colleague from their time at the University of Colorado who died in 2024.

“He would be overjoyed,” Guralnick said, “absolutely overjoyed.”

Meanwhile, much to McCann’s surprise, Mrs. Yates is still alive (“I thought she was maybe 10 years older than she actually was,” he said. “Kids are so bad at guessing ages.”). And she remains a proud owner of “The Weighty Word Book.”

McCann said he has set a date to visit his former Utah teacher, a short drive away, in the coming days.

“I hope that teachers,” he said, “especially in the climate that we’re in right now in which teachers are constantly under attack, that they know that they really do make a massive impact in ways that they probably don’t even realize.”

McCann will have to wait until June for the copy of “The Weighty Word Book” he just bought — it’s on back order.

Guralnick and Levitt, though, have conspired to send him a signed copy sooner.