There are so many amazing things going on during Midwinter that it can be overwhelming! I’m learning to accept the fact that I can’t turn into Hermione with her time-turner. I would love to be in multiple places at once. Because I know I can’t make it to everything on my schedule, I’ve been prioritizing a few sessions and otherwise going with the flow. Yesterday that led to some really great moments and conversations! A snapshot for you:
\nI attended the Bloomsbury, Disney, HarperCollins, Macmillan Book Buzz, as well as the Penguin Young Readers Book Buzz sessions. What could be greater than hearing publishers share what they are most excited about in their new lineup of titles? The enthusiasm and insight they provide on the authors, illustrators and stories is always incredibly helpful. After a session I talked with a really nice school librarian near me about collection development in schools that span wide-ranging grade levels. Fascinating! She also encouraged me to try crocheting again, I promise I will.<\/p>\n
Beyond the Book Buzz talks, I always enjoy asking publisher reps what they personally are most excited about in their new line of titles. At ALA Annual in June, Trevor Ingerson gave me The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. It was by far one of the best books I read in 2016. Saturday I had a great chat with a Disney Book Group rep about Shannon and Dean Hale’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World. Because I asked about it, I received an Advanced Reader Copy and got to hear about how truly hilarious the book is. I also spent some time with a Bloomsbury rep who recommended Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson and Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser, I can’t wait to read them!<\/p>\n
Everyone I have come into contact with at ALA conferences has always been extremely friendly. People want to talk to you and swap ideas! It’s wonderful. <\/p>\n
Kurt at the Demco booth taught me all about Ozobots and TeacherGeek products. He not only demonstrated how the products worked, he talked with me about how the products might be incorporated in a new program I’m creating at a local Y. So helpful!!<\/p>\n
Author\/Illustrator Nathan Hale heard I booktalk books with 5th graders and told me the secret to the ARC of his new book One a Trick Pony. The ARC has both finished black and white drawings, as well as initial sketches in it. He actually included commentary in the ARC on how he created the book. Such a neat detail to include! I also met a man in the exhibit hall from one town over from me in Michigan. He’s currently on the Schneider award committee and shared that they’ve chosen their winners already! (Don’t worry, he did not spill the beans to me).
\nI finished my day yesterday at the New Member Round Table social event. NMRT does an excellent job ensuring you meet people and do something fun in the process. Tonight we played trivia! I promise I would be raving about the event even if my team hadn’t won. It was such a blast to play library inspired trivia with people from all over the country in such diverse library jobs. My table featured copyright, fashion and school librarians to name a few. The hardest round by far was a picture round where half of one celebrity’s face was smashed with half of someone else’s face and we had to figure out who was in the pictures. So challenging! I ended up at dinner afterwards with 4 of my teammates and we continued our great conversations there too. I am really enjoying all of the conversations I’ve been fortunately enough to participate in this weekend. I look forward to seeing who I meet today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are so many amazing things going on during Midwinter that it can be overwhelming! I’m learning to accept the fact that I can’t turn into Hermione with her time-turner. I would love to be in multiple places at once. Because I know I can’t make it to everything on my schedule, I’ve been prioritizing a few sessions and otherwise going with the flow. Yesterday that led to some really great moments and conversations! A snapshot for you: I attended the Bloomsbury, Disney, HarperCollins, Macmillan Book Buzz, as well as the Penguin Young Readers Book Buzz sessions. What could be greater than hearing publishers share what they are most excited about in their new lineup of titles? The enthusiasm and insight they provide on the authors, illustrators and stories is always incredibly helpful. After a session I talked with a really nice school librarian near me about collection development in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":14950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1153,151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ala-midwinter-2017","category-live-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/278"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}