Sunday at ALA

As promised, a quick review of what happened on Sunday -- before the Newbery/ Caldecott banquet.

I really wanted to attend "The lady, the Tramp, and the Lion King. Mixed Messages about gender, race, and ethnicity in Disney's Magic Kingdom. But couldn't get myself going in time to get to an 8 am meeting. Too bad.

I did make it to the Random House Children's Fall Book review, but all the book handouts had been handed out before I got there. However, the nice people there said to just go to the Random House booth and ask -- so I did-- and was able to get a copy of a new Beverly Cleary about the Pain and the Great One. I hadn't seen a new Beverly Cleary in ages. How exciting. And just right for my 8-year old who will be entering 2nd grade soon. She'll be thrilled.

Stopped by the Clarion booth to talk to Susanna Reich who was signing her new book -- Painting the Wild Frontier: The Art and Adventures of George Catlin. That's one large, but beautiful book. As an old history major, I couldn't resist getting one.

Sunday afternoon began with "Programming your way through Dewey." Great ideas about using nonfiction books as "great reads" in schools. Many applications for public libraries also.

Then back to the room to meet up with my family and get ready for the Newbery/ Caldecott banquet. The girls were busy getting them selves beautiful for a dinner with the Disney princesses.
-wendieO

Oh ALA, Look what you've done

When I go to ALA, I'm right in there with everybody else picking up the goodies the publishers and tech people hand out. A lot of the goodies I'll use as prizes during the library's Summer Reading Program. Others I keep for myself.

--sun screen lotion in when ALA was in Florida? sure.
--free ARCs? sure. (Advanced Reader's Copies of books the publishers want librarians to know about and buy, buy, buy)
--posters? sure.
--A make-your-own airplane? sure.
--bookmarks? love them.
--pencils? pens? rulers? other office supplies? great!
--A cell phone?

Huh, you say?
What do you mean, cell phone?

I passed this one by several times before I actually picked one up. Through the packaging I could see what looked like a pool of lip gloss or chapstick. "Oh cool," I thought. Just the thing the 8-year olds at my library and my 8-year old at home would love. A play cell phone full of chapstick.

So I gathered it up and dropped it into my goodie bag. (supplied by the ALA registration desk)

This whole past week the 8-year old had been waking up early because she wanted to go early to the before-school daycare with my spouse. Because she was making something special for Mother's day and needed the extra time there. Meaning I could sleep in and take my time getting to work.

Yesterday I was awakened by a crying 8-year old. And an irritated spouse who told me that I would have to take the 8 year old to before-school daycare because he wasn't going anywhere with this painted lady.

When I finally took a good look at her, she was indeed highly made up. Bright red lips/ rosy cheeks/ eyeshadow. hmmmm. where did she get her supplies?

It turns out that this innocent looking cell phone/ lip gloss/ thingie wasn't so innocent. She had discovered another layer to it which held little pools of various shades of lipstick. (the eye shadow she had lifted from my bureau.)

Many tears. How could we tell she had makeup on?
After a good scrub with Noxima (TM) and a long talk about how we older people used makeup so that we could look like she already looked, I finally managed to get her to daycare and me to work.

I'm going to have to take a good look at the rest of these ALA goodies before I hand them out to children this summer.

-wendieO