Dream Day for a Librarian

Last week I got up early (darn Chinook - he's up early every morning) and was leisurely reading the newspaper.  I came across an article about Chris Raschka, the 2012 Caldecott Award winner.  He was scheduled to appear THAT DAY at BooksmART at the Dallas Museum of Art with all kinds of great authors and illustrators.  How come no one told me about this??  I was instantly motivated and started waking children up to get ready to go.

Marcy, Emily and Anna ended up going with me.  Thank goodness Anna was at our house - she was all for it and I'm not sure Emily and Marcy would have been too excited without her saying, "Yes, let's go!"

We started off the day with a scavenger hunt.  We were too late to be in the running for prizes but it was fun for the girls and we avoided the early crowds at the author signings and presentations.

Some of the scavenger hunt finds:

 

 

Next we waited in line for author signings.  All the girls had Baby Mouse books to be signed and Anna had When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.  I also bought Newbery Winner Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos.  I went to get his signature and he was coming inside.  He heard me say, "Oh, I missed it!" and he said, "If you follow me to my next event I'll sign for you when we get there." So, I walked with him through the museum.  So cool!

My Jack Gantos signed book

Baby Mouse author and illustrator siblings

Jennifer and Matthew Holm

2010 Newbery Winner

Rebecca Stead

After some well deserved lunch, we attended some of the programs going on.  We saw Deborah Hopkinson give a reading from her non-fiction book Titanic.  Emily and Anna both decided it would be a good summer read.  Then we went to see Chris Raschka speak.  He did a funny drawing of his two cats so we could get to know him better and then took volunteers from the audience to act out his books.  Marcy and Anna got chosen!

 Marcy performing Yo! Yes?

 Anna performing A Ball for Daisy

2012 Caldecott winner

Last, we saw Jack Gantos speak.  He was really funny and the girls loved it.  What kids wouldn't when he told stories about 6th grade when he vomited spaghetti on a wall, got locked outside his house naked, and tortured his older sister with a giant cockroach?

What a great day!  We were there for 4 hours and no one complained about being bored or begged to go home.  I'm definitely going again next year.  How could anyone pass up a free event like this???