ALA! Pt. 3 (and final)
The last bit, I promise.
The Printz Reception
This was quite different from the banquet the night before. Informal and more relaxed, it was held in the huge auditorium with about 700 people there. The chair of the Printz committee was not irritating like the Newbery lady, though she sighed often as if she were too tired to go on. Perhaps she was, especially if she was on one of the other committees that met for hours and hours over the previous days.
All five authors spoke, and all were eloquent and engrossing in different ways. Gene Yang had some slides of rude/racist/stupid comments bloggers had posted about American Born Chinese. He is a HS science teacher and seemed very sincere and gratified to be there. Sonya Hartnett is a tiny lady and was funny and fierce but for the life of me I can't recall what she talked about. Marcus Zusak had a humorous story about the phone call to tell him he'd won as an honor book. He was off somewhere where he had no phone and his mother took a garbled message for him. John Green talked about how Muslim-Americans are treated in the US and about his friend who he based the character of Hassan on. He told a funny story about librarians and his dad kept standing up shooting with his video camera. Tobin Anderson was not feeling well and left right after his speech. He spoke about the importance of historical fiction books and how easy it is for people to look at the past and think we would never have committed what we now see as grievous wrongs. The issue of slavery is easy for us to look back on and believe we would have acted differently, or would have seen it as so wrong. One day, he said, people in the future will look back at us and wonder how we could have supported some of the things we now do.
My camera wasn't doing well that day, so this is the only photo that turned out. Marcus Zusak is darling, isn't he? That is Gene Yang sitting in the dark suit.
Earlier that day, Small But Mighty colleague and I went to the Library of Congress. We lost our minds and decided to walk there. It wasn't too far, about three miles, but it was hot and so humid! We took the Metro (subway) back and were very pleased with ourselves that we were able to figure it out without making too big of asses of ourselves. The Library of Congress was terrifically awesome. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson sold his library to the US to begin the Library of Congress?
Saw this on John Green's blog site:
"July shall be NAtional Finish A Revision Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month (NAFAROYBIMSCOM). Anyone joining me?"
The Printz Reception
This was quite different from the banquet the night before. Informal and more relaxed, it was held in the huge auditorium with about 700 people there. The chair of the Printz committee was not irritating like the Newbery lady, though she sighed often as if she were too tired to go on. Perhaps she was, especially if she was on one of the other committees that met for hours and hours over the previous days.
All five authors spoke, and all were eloquent and engrossing in different ways. Gene Yang had some slides of rude/racist/stupid comments bloggers had posted about American Born Chinese. He is a HS science teacher and seemed very sincere and gratified to be there. Sonya Hartnett is a tiny lady and was funny and fierce but for the life of me I can't recall what she talked about. Marcus Zusak had a humorous story about the phone call to tell him he'd won as an honor book. He was off somewhere where he had no phone and his mother took a garbled message for him. John Green talked about how Muslim-Americans are treated in the US and about his friend who he based the character of Hassan on. He told a funny story about librarians and his dad kept standing up shooting with his video camera. Tobin Anderson was not feeling well and left right after his speech. He spoke about the importance of historical fiction books and how easy it is for people to look at the past and think we would never have committed what we now see as grievous wrongs. The issue of slavery is easy for us to look back on and believe we would have acted differently, or would have seen it as so wrong. One day, he said, people in the future will look back at us and wonder how we could have supported some of the things we now do.
My camera wasn't doing well that day, so this is the only photo that turned out. Marcus Zusak is darling, isn't he? That is Gene Yang sitting in the dark suit.
Earlier that day, Small But Mighty colleague and I went to the Library of Congress. We lost our minds and decided to walk there. It wasn't too far, about three miles, but it was hot and so humid! We took the Metro (subway) back and were very pleased with ourselves that we were able to figure it out without making too big of asses of ourselves. The Library of Congress was terrifically awesome. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson sold his library to the US to begin the Library of Congress?
Saw this on John Green's blog site:
"July shall be NAtional Finish A Revision Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month (NAFAROYBIMSCOM). Anyone joining me?"