ALAAC19 - Saturday

Saturday morning I had a dilemma as often happens during these big conferences. Justice Sotomayor was speaking at the same time I had a panel by some authors whose work I enjoy. it was a panel called The Urgency of History: how librarians can prepare kids for their time. The panel was a mix of fiction and non-fiction authors - Gennifer Choldenko, Varian Johnson, Elizabeth Partridge, Marissa Moss and Sharon Robinson. They answered questions like, How do we bring kids and history together? What are some of the challenges? How do you deal with context? Whose past told in whose voice? Do you soften the ugly aspects? Interesting questions with fascinating answers. What was great about this particular panel was the chemistry. They really connected and had a great conversation.

After spending some time on the exhibit floor, I went to Best websites for teaching and learning. It's the last year of this committee as it stands. It is merging with Best Apps, which makes sense. Each site they chose seems to be something either I or one of my colleagues could use. 

Then I went to the always fun Disney preview. I grabbed a few arcs from a rapidly disappearing pile and sat down to enjoy the authors read from their upcoming books.

For the last few years, I have been privileged to be invited to the Penguin cocktail party. Last year, it was in this amazing space called the Art Garage. This year, it was in Culture House. The authors featured were Laurie Halse Anderson, Ruta Sepetys, Gabby Rivera, David Yoon and Renée Ahdieh. I have already read SHOUT with my eyes and with my ears and really cannot wait to dive into the other four.

My dinner event was cancelled so my conference pal, Barb Langridge of abookandahug and I invited another conference pal of mine, Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kid Books and after finding our top choices of restaurants full and our energy flagging, grabbed dinner at a pasta place near my hotel. It was pricey but superb and the conversation was invigorating.