It's as clear as black and white.

I have this picture of the author being unapproachable, and I think I can blame Julie Andrews for that. Did you ever think that I would have a negative thing to say about that woman? Because when I went to her book signing in Boston a couple years ago, the fear of God was put into me that I couldn't really a)talk to her or b)take any pictures. It really is quite a silly thing that I should base all interactions with authors on her standards. Silly because I have met authors before her and after her, and they were all very nice and highly approachable.


The scene: high school, 11th grade

In my English class, we were broken into small groups and assigned different books to read. My group was assigned The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks. As part of this project, we had to come up with type of project presenting the book to the class. We ended up inviting Russell Banks to come to our class and give a book talk. He came, he was very nice to all of us crazy high schoolers and our project was a success.


The scene: ALA Conference, 2007

Mitali Perkins' book launch party for her newest book, First Daughter. I had so much fun there! I ate things (samosas) that had vegetables in it (peas) and learned how to do some bhangra dancing (and, there are pictures that have me in it doing some dancing, but you won't be seeing them here!). Julie, Genevieve, and I teamed up for Mitali's presidental quiz and we all actually won a free copy of First Daughter. This was later signed by Mitali. Just so you know (this was the bonus/tie breaker in the quiz) that 23 presidential children have gone on to write books. 23

After Mitali read a "bit and a bite" from her book about bhangra dancing, and then we all danced a couple dances (after being taught), as well as watched a professional dancer do a dance for us. The songs were all about the beauty of the girl's eyes. Here is a picture of Julie, Mitali, and I from after the dancing:

After the book launch party, we all headed down to the KidLit Drink Night at Capital City Brewing Company for dinner. Well, I at least had dinner there! It was a rotating cast of librarians/bloggers/authors that completely confused our poor waiter. But, it was so nice getting to meet all of these new people and a whole new world of blogging has been opened up to me. I'm so new at this blogging that it was quite embarrassing to introduce myself. I also realized that perhaps a Welsh phrase was not the best name for a blog because it's awfully impractical when attempting to tell a stranger the name of your blog. Especially when one word includes the double "ll" at the end of it (you really do need to make a strange sound if you want to pronouce it correctly. You live and learn!

A complete list of everyone that we met is over at Julie's blog. Though, I must say that it was particularly nice to have met Jennie at Biblio File. She had to put up with my tired ramblings, poor girl!

After dinner, Julie and I decided that we were far too tired to attend the storytelling program that evening, so we headed back home on the metro and, eventually, home home.

So, overall, it was a great experience and this was only day one! And, I've added so many books I need to read to my "book book".