#ALAAC15 – Day 2 – Woohoo

I was up early to see how my Dad was doing. He isn’t out of the woods yet, but his blood levels were good and he was awake while my twin sister was in for a visit. Knowing that the news was a bit better, I decided to take a morning stroll to the Embarcadero, after checking in at the conference registration area, to see if I could get some postcards to send to my students. It was a longish walk, but the day was beautiful. I wandered through the Ferry building and discovered a lovely little bookstore called Book Passage that had a n excellent supply of inexpensive postcards. So, I bought 23 and went outside to watch the ferries as I started to write to my students. It was a perfect day for some outdoors writing.

My first conference event came in the afternoon: a tea sponsored by Bloomsbury books. I was fortunate enough to be at the table with the featured author, Leah Thomas. We were greeted with a glass of champagne and, once inside the room, had a choice of teas, little sandwiches, scones and other treats appropriate for an afternoon tea. I also, finally, met some of my Morris committee colleagues. We’d only met online until today and there are still a few I have yet to meet. Each attendee was also given a bag of books containing 4 middle grade/YA novels.

From there, it took a little quiet time back in Yerba Buena Gardens (which, I discovered this morning, is on the other side of the Moscone Center!) before heading off to event number 2: the Simon & Schuster YA Debut Author Panel & Dinner. This was the most fun event of the day. First, they fed us. Then Jason Reynolds, author of The Boy in the Black Suit  and When I Was the Greatest, hosted a panel with 6 debut authors. And, you guessed it, we each got a bag with signed copies of each author’s book. Here is a haul I came away with today (and I haven’t even made it to the exhibition hall yet).

Then the real fun began. We “speed dated” each author. All the conference attendees sat at a table and each author came to talk to your table for about 10 minutes. When time was called they moved on to the next table and we got a new author.

That ended around 7:30, just in time for me to hop on over to the Printz Award Presentation & reception. It started off with the presentation of the awards to the 2015 Honor Books. Then, Jandy Nelson, author of the winner,  I’ll Give You the Sun, gave her speech, which was truly wonderful. She is a gifted writer and her speech was as beautiful as her book. This was followed by questions to the panel.

I skipped the reception part. I was pooped.

I did manage to meet up with two of the district librarians from Beaverton, and some old friends from OASL.

Tomorrow promises to be another faction packed day.

Dealing with Grief

Don’t panic. Fiona is well. In fact, when I got home Tuesday afternoon, she was up and acting as if nothing had ever happened. Weird. But I’m watching.

The grief I want to talk about is int Jason Reynolds’ new book, The Boy in the Black Suit. 

From the Publisher: Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this wry, gritty novel from the author of When I Was the Greatest.

Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt’s snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. She’s got a crazy name, and she’s been through more crazy than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She’s tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he’s drawn to her, and definitely why he can’t seem to shake her. Because there’s nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness—and who can maybe even help take it away.

 I listened to this on CDs generously provided by Audiobook Jukebox. The book is narrated by Corey Allen, who does a great job. He effectively portrays Matt, a teenage boy from Brooklyn, and manages to voice female characters well, by simple changes in his voice. The recording runs 7.75 hours on 7 CDs and is well listening to. I think I enjoyed  The Boy in the Black Suit more as an audiobook than I would have reading the text because of Corey Allen’s ability to sound like a Brooklyn teenager.