It was a huge privilege and joy to celebrate the upcoming release of Reasons to Hate Me with so many fellow librarians at ALA! We ran out of ARCs after my signing, so I was grateful that Candlewick printed up flyers to hand out to the librarians who visited the booth later on. I was truly starstruck that my book was on display among so many other wonderful titles, and it was extra exciting to see the cover up on the banner behind the booth.
Friday night, after attending a reception thrown by Walker Books Group (which encompasses Candlewick, Holiday House and Peachtree), I headed over to the 25th anniversary celebration of the Michael L. Printz Awards at the Pennsylvania Free Library. This year’s titles are incredible and the authors gave some fabulous speeches.
Intellectual Freedom was a theme of the conference with several sessions focusing on book bans, including a session by the Brooklyn Public Library on their “Books Unbanned” program. The librarians shared advice for helping teens gain the skills they need to be advocates for themselves and their own rights in political settings, through public speaking, persuasive writing, and other transferable skills.
I also met new author-friends, including Kekla Magoon, who has the same editor at Candlewick as I do (hi Andrea!) and volunteered to show me around the conference.
Sunday night culminated in the Caldecott and Newbery Awards banquet, and it was extra special since the Caldecott winner is a New Mexico artist, Rebecca Lee Kunz. It was also very exciting hear Erin Entrada Kelly and Carole Boston Weatherford speak as they accepted their awards. A wonderful way to close out a wonderful conference!
