18 Nov It’s Festival Time

{A packed afternoon at Rochester’s Children’s Book Festival!}

Most of the year, my industry of children’s publishers, authors, and illustrators seems far away in hubs like New York City. But once a year here in Rochester the children’s book industry comes to us at Rochester’s Children’s Book Festival.

And what a festival it was! I was very happy to see the festival brimming with energy of parents, children, and teachers all eager to buy books, meet authors and illustrators, and learn about the craft of children’s books. There were several well known authors attending this year too, like Jane O’Connor the author of the Fancy Nancy series.

The head liners were fun, but I had my own agenda at the festival. There were a couple of ladies in particular that I was thrilled to meet.

The first was Kate Messner the author of Over and Under the Snow. I snapped a few photos just after I had a fun quick conversation with her. She’s the one with the glasses on in the black shirt on the left.

{Kate signed my book with this little extra bit: “Look, Listen, and WONDER…”}

Over and Under the Snow is illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. I blogged about this book a few years ago when it came out. It’s a beautiful book that blends non-fiction facts about animals hibernating with a fictional story. I felt great that I had the opportunity to tell her how much I enjoyed both the story and the beautiful book design. She said the her publisher Chronicle Books was a dream to work with. I’d love to be able to design a book for them one day!

My other author that I was looking for was Elizabeth Bluemle. I dropped in on a talk she was giving on how to create fun and smooth rhyme in picture books. She gave several inspiring tips. I like the one that if you get stuck, walk in the rhythm of your text. Not only is this a change of scene, but it also helps you to internalize your text and the pacing of it. Love it!

I bought her recent picture book, Tap Tap Boom Boom, not only for the great text, but again for the fabulous book design of it. I will be blogging more about this book VERY soon. It’s a great read aloud!

And finally, I met a new friend at the festival on Saturday. Her name is Lacy and she is a HUGE fan of picture books. She told me her favorite book was, Harry the Dirty Dog and she especially loves to watch Betty White read it aloud. hehe!

Do you have an author you’d love to meet? Share it with me!