Say it with me now – OMG I can’t believe it is May already!
Where does the time go? This year is flying by at an alarming rate because I have been busy busy busy!
Most recently, it was the fun weekend that is the Frostburg University Spring Festival of Children’s Literature. This was the 36th year for the festival and my second year attending and presenting. My fellow AACPL Librarian Sharon and I did a session on creating booktalks to get students exciting about reading.
It is a nice little conference, but they get some great speakers and this year was no exception.
- The hilarious Cece Bell, author of the graphic novel El Deafo (5/5 READ IT! It makes great use of the format to convey to readers what it feels like to be deaf)
- R. Gregory Christie, a super-talented illustrator who had some introspective thoughts on how to approach creating images for children’s picture books and why diversity matters
- Steve Sheinkin, author of a fantastic collection of non-fiction books for kids/teens (and very readable for adults!) covering some of the “messier” people from American history.
- P.J. Lynch, acclaimed Irish illustrator and Irish Laureate who has been creating beautiful artwork for books and more for quite a long time
The big focus is on elementary school teachers, but there were some public librarians and Headstart teachers in attendance this year, at least in our two sessions. Our sessions went well, though I felt like I had to talk fast because we only had about 50 minutes per session and when we originally created the training, it ran for 2 hours LOL. Oh well, hopefully they could scribble notes fast enough as we zipped through it all.
If you’ve wanted to go to a conference but you’re maybe not big on the huge crowds yet you want to meet some high level authors, this is a great Festival to attend. They hold it every spring so watch for sign-ups next year! Who knows, I might be there again to teach you how to spread that love of reading!
Why a librarian? 