Book signings and Sleepovers

Today was the annual meeting of MASL. Maryland Association of School Librarians.
Almost every year I'm invited to their Maryland Author's Luncheon, to sign books and then have lunch with a table of school librarians. (This year there were 23 authors, so many tables had authors.)

The luncheon speaker was the wonderful author, Joseph Bruchac. He began his talk playing his Native American flute. Then he explained that the tune was from a song about young evergreens being sheltered and helped to grow by the older, taller trees -- like parents, teachers, and librarians do. In true Native American fashion, he conveyed his message (how most of his books, even the ones about war, are actually about peace and getting along) by telling us stories. If you ever need a wonderful speaker for a meeting or convention, do ask Joseph Bruchac to speak.

I always have fun at MASL. I got to see many of the school librarians who had invited me to do author visits at their schools. You can see me talking away at Arnold Elementary School in an earlier post. (I highly recommend that school to other authors. They really treat you right.)

Before the luncheon, I signed books people had bought. After the luncheon, I offered free copies of the Halloween Book of Facts and Fun to the wonderful librarians who sat at my table.

Was it just last year that I was a speaker at this event? yup. I still remember driving to Ocean City, Maryland, with two seven-year olds in the back seat, praying that my old car would make the trip. And now it's a year later and I still have the same car taking me places. It's almost 10 years old. I guess old Saturns never die. Luckily, the meeting this year was back to being just outside Baltimore.

Speaking of those seven-year olds -- they're now eight and are presently making nests in our living room tonight for a sleepover. They've spent the evening playing on the website == Club Penguin. Actually THREE eight-year olds were playing together on Club Penguin. Their other friend was on the phone with them and when I went downstairs a few minutes ago -- my eight-year old and the girl on the telephone were having their penguins have a snowball fight on the computer. That's amazing. Over the whole internet, two penguins being controlled by kids in two different houses were interacting. And the two girls were interacting over the telephone.

It's a good thing that most of our friends know our cell-phone numbers, because nobody was getting through on the house phone for about an hour tonight.

Well, I guess I'd better go downstairs to see how close to going to bed they are.
-wendieO