Elephants and Piggies and Pigeons, oh my!

Mr. Richards and I went up to San Francisco for the third weekend in a row last weekend to see more comedy shows.  It was the last weekend of SF Sketchfest.  Sunday morning we went to see Don't Let the Comedians Do Story Time.  This was a fantastic hour with Mo Willems and some of his comedian friends reading his books.  Here is a picture of them all from the @SFSketchfest twitter feed:

In the picture: Mo Willems, Maya Rudolph, Ken Marino, Rachel Dratch, Janeane Garofalo, Jo LoTruglio, Andy Richter, David Wain, Lorraine Newman, Patten Oswalt, and Michael Ian Black.

As I said, it was a terrific and very funny show.  The comedians read Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, and We Are In a Book.  Mo Willems taught us all how to draw the pigeon by putting shapes together in the right order. We got a sneak preview of Mr. Willems' new book that will be coming out in the spring That Is Not a Good Idea.  You can see the cover here.  I've already pre-ordered this for the library, I know you all will love it!  Mr. Willems closed the show by reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus with Patton Oswalt reading the part of the Bus Driver.

Mr. Willems was kind enough to spend some time after the show signing books for his fans so I bought some books for the library and he signed them for me.  (They're all checked out already!)  Here's a picture (I'm telling him how is books are always checked out and he thanked me for being a librarian):

Happily, this all coincides with our CYRM reading of We Are In a Book this week.  I read it to a second grade class today and told them about meeting Mo Willems and how he taught us how to draw the Pigeon and they wanted to draw the Pigeon too, so we put some shapes together in the right order and drew pigeons.  Then I asked them to write titles for their own Pigeon books and they came up with some great ones such as:

Don't Let the Pigeon Swim in the Magma
Don't Let the Pigeon Babysit Because He Might Be a Vampire
Don't Let the Pigeon Eat at MacDonald's

Their teacher is going to have them write complete stories to go with their titles and then we'll mail them off to Mr. Willems because I know for a fact he doesn't get enough of these, plus ours will be the best he's ever seen.

You can see more about Mo Willems' books at his fun website www.gomo.net or follow his blog or follow @the_pigeon on Twitter

New Books! And a sock.

Yesterday, a box of books from Junior Library Guild arrived at the library! Yay! Here's what came:

These awesome books are brought to you by our generous Marshall Lane PTA, whom I'd like to thank for providing the library with funds again this year to buy materials for our library. And here is the sock I was knitting at the PTA meeting last week:

A couple of other things I'd like to share with you. I know I've mentioned Mo Willems' Blog before but I want to mention it again because recently he had Eric Carle and his wife over for dinner and doodles and he shares pictures of the doodles.

Also, we are almost into October now so it's time to think about All Hallow's Read again. Why not give someone you love a scary book to read?

One last thing! Tom Angleberger, author of The Strange Tale of Origami Yoda and Darth Paper Stikes Back is going to be at Hicklebee's tomorrow, September 29 at 3:00 and will be talking about his books and signing books afterwards.

Eeeeeww! Germs!

I read "Should I Share My Ice Cream," an Elephant and Piggie book by Mo Willems today to a group of kinders who seemed to be very concerned about the spread of germs by sharing food. They really did not want Gerald sharing his germs with Piggie. I finally had to explain to them that Elephant and Piggie are drawings and drawings don't have germs. That seemed to satisfy them.

Wrapping Up the Weekend.

Well, tomorrow took longer to get here than I thought! In fact, it took almost a week! But here I am to finish the story. Let's see, I left off after seeing the amazing William Joyce. I had one more goal for the day but I was getting pretty tired from standing around in lines and hiking around the enormous convention center. Have I told you how enormous the convention center was? One attendee joked on twitter that not only did the exhibit floor have its own time zone but the exhibitor directory had its own gravitational pull! This is only a small exaggeration! The place is large. I couldn't help but think of all the money going into and circulating around this convention, which is a definite boon to the New Orleans economy. In fact, this is the second ALA conference to be held in New Orleans since Katrina. ALA was the first organization to hold a conference at the convention center in New Orleans after the devastating floods caused by Katrina, which contributed significantly to the city's recovery. Yes, librarians rock.

So, by this time I was getting tired and actually debating whether or not I should I just go back to my hotel or wait a bit longer and get one more book signed. Well, I thought about that book, and the author and illustrator who would be there to sign the book, and I thought of the Marshall Lane kids and knew I had to stay. The author and illustrator were Jenny Offill and Nancy Carpenter and their book is '17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore,' a favorite read aloud at Marshall Lane. It was a good thing I stayed because, as it turns out, there is a sequel to the book called '11 Experiments That Failed' and it's equally as hilarious! The book was hot off the presses. So hot, in fact, that the creators hadn't seen it yet in it's final form. The book is due to be released in September and the publisher had brought their first batch of books to the conference and I bought the first one so that makes the first person in the world to own this book! (I bought it for the library though, so the library is first!) How special is that? Here is a picture of the author and illustrator. I'm not in this picture because by this time I was too tired and wilted to bother.


So that ended my day. Mr. Richards and I went out for some delicious food and then I went to bed. The next day, I had just two objectives and, again, I showed up early so I could get a good spot in line. And again, Success! Can you guess who I'm with in this picture?If you guessed Judy Blume, you'd be wrong, oh so wrong. If you guessed Mo Willems, you'd be right! Yes! That's me (again with the squeee! face) and Mo Willems! He was signing his brand new book, 'Should I Share My Ice Cream?' a Gerald and Piggie book and it's just as delightful as you would expect. And look who else I got a picture with! Yes! It's Gerald and Piggie! Who were at least as popular as Mr. Willems himself, if not more.

Now, all this time on the exhibitor floor added up to me having a lot of books and stuff to take home with me, which I wasn't thinking about as I was collecting all this stuff. How was I going to get all this stuff home on the plane? Well, lucky for me, they had a post office set up right there on the exhibitor floor! So that was my second objective, I packed up all my swag and mailed it home! And as you can see in the picture below it all arrived safely! Mr. Richards and I spent the rest of the day together enjoying food, the sights, and some music. Then Monday morning we flew home without incident.

That same Monday night we drove to Berkeley to see Neil Gaiman interviewed by Mythbuster Adam Savage for the 10th anniversary of Mr. Gaiman's groundbreaking novel American Gods. Remember lat year, I went to an American Gods gathering at The House on the Rock. Thanks to more standing in line for ages, we got a front row seat! To celebrate the anniversary, a new edition of the book was released with some material added back into it, so now it's longer! As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too much Neil Gaiman!

So that was my Book Geek Weekend, spent chasing down authors like they were rockstars because they are rockstars! Mr. Richards might call this stalking, but I disagree! The reason I do this is because when I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. But then I decided I didn't have the talent for it, but I still love stories. And I hope that, in some small way, this little blog might encourage one or more of our students to pursue their dream of being a writer, or an illustrator. Not because crazy ladies will stalk you like you're a rock star, but because stories are important. In all their forms. Storytellers tell us the truth in fiction, they preserve our culture and histories, they frighten us and take us places, stretch our imagination and challenge our intellect. And I'm going to stop now, before this becomes a giant tangent. Next time, I will update you on my Nerd Wars tournament.

New books and a blog you should look at.

Mo Willems keeps a blog that I read from time to time. Being a writer and illustrator, he is friends with lots of other writers and illustrators and occasionally he has them over for dinner. He calls these gatherings "doodle dinners" because he uses butcher paper on his table instead of a table cloth. His friends and family get together and doodle on the table before, during, and after dinner and then he takes a picture of the doodles and puts them on his blog. I think this is such a fantastic idea, even if it's just your own little family. What a great way to enhance the family dinner! Also, in his dining room, he has painted the walls with chalk board paint so quite often they doodle on the walls as well. I wish I'd thought of that when my kids were little, since they were drawing on the walls anyway!

So that's all, I just wanted to share that with you and also, here are the Junior Library Guild books that will be coming in December, during Book Fair no doubt! In any case, there will be lots of new books in the library in January!

The Watsons Go To Birmingham -1963

I enjoyed Elijah of Buxton so much, I thought I'd listen to something else by Christopher Paul Curtis. So I downloaded The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 and I was not disappointed. This book has won the California Young Readers Medal, The Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor. The Watsons, nicknamed the 'Weird Watsons' by their neighbors, are an average African-American family living in Flint, Michigan. The story is told by the middle child Kenny who has a lazy eye. Byron, the oldest of the Watson siblings whom they've nicknamed 'Daddy Cool', has been getting in to lots of trouble, or in Byron's words, having 'wild adventures.' Byron's parents decide it would be good for Byron to spend the summer with his grandmother in Alabama, where he might learn some manners. The whole family treks from Flint to Birmingham in the family car, the 'brown bomber' but they all get a bigger dose of reality than they were prepared for. Every family has their funny stories, the big family moments that each family member remembers just a little bit differently. This is how Kenny relays this story to the readers, through a hilarious series of family moments, similar to the way Ralphie narrates "A Christmas Story." I think everyone will be able to see a bit of their own family in the Watsons. And kids, be sure you ask your parents (or grandparents) about the cartoon references - Felix the Cat, Beanie and Cecil, and Soupy Sales!

In other news, Knuffle Bunny, Free by our pal Mo Willems is out today! I will get a copy of this for the library as soon as I can. In the mean time, check out the Pigeon's webpage. Good times!

Something to do this summer

Hey kids! You like cartoons? You like graphic novels? Of course you do! So here is something cool for you to do this summer! Tell your parents to take you here, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco to see the Storytime! Graphic Novels for Kids of All Ages exhibit. Whether your parents like cartoons or not, they can't say 'no' because it's a museum! Therefore, if you go there, you will become smarter! Plus, who doesn't love a fun day in the city? Did I mention that Jeff Smith's Bone will be in the exhibit and so will Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie? I am going! And you should, too.

While you are here, leave me a comment and tell me what graphic novels you'd like to see added to the library's collection.