Grateful for the National Book Festival

This past Saturday was our second time attending the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Amy and I had a great day - lots of standing in line, but again we both got to hear talks by authors we enjoy (Sarah Vowell for me, Raina Telgemeier for her).

Amy getting her Raina Telegemeier books signed,
after hours waiting in line.

Once again this year I am SO grateful that the authors/illustrators that Amy likes take the time to interact with their fans and talk about their work. Raina Telgemeier talked with the kids about how she grew up drawing, and even showed some of her early work. I was glad to have Amy hear that this famous author was like her, and had always been drawing, getting better over the years through lots of practice. Raina also went through how her artistic process works as she's doing a new book, even including photos of the favorite kind of pencils and pens she uses. And BTW, I think Amy's drawings compare very favorably to Raina's work at the same age (Amy argued about this with me, of course). Last year with author Jarrett Krosoczka, he also showed a lot of early work (his parents apparently saved everything!) and talked about how his work was rejected so many times before he finally got a book deal. So fabulous to have Amy hear these messages of working on your craft, and being resilient!

Amy also got to get Lois Lowry to sign our copy of "The Giver," which Reed is currently assigned to read in eighth grade English. He was banking on having a signed copy giving him an automatic A. LOL

On one hand, these past couple of years there've been lots of authors at the festival that I missed out on seeing and meeting, because we were focusing on things Amy wanted to do. I know it won't be too long before we can go to the festival together and basically head in opposite directions. But for now I am glad to have this shared experience with her, and expose her to things that she really loves, where she really fits in.

Amy wrote this poem for a poetry unit in her sixth grade English class. I love this too!!