A Post-NCTE Photo Wrap-Up

Saturday was my busy day at NCTE, starting with a morning book signing, then an interview about THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. for the ReadWriteThink podcast, lunch, and the Middle Level Mosaic, a highlight of the trip for me because I got to hear presentations from English teacher rock stars like Jeff Wilhelm, Nancie Atwell, & Teri Lesesne. I’m back to school this morning to finish our unit on dystopian literature and let my students fight over the ARCs I brought home. Since they’re publisher review copies, I’ve decided I’ll be loaning them out with strings attached…so in the next few weeks, you’ll get to read some 7th grade guest reviewers’ thoughts on new titles coming out in 2010.

I’ll post more about NCTE — all the workshops and speeches — when I’ve had a little more time to process everything in my notes. In a word, it was overwhelming. But in the very best way possible. For now, here’s a Monday morning photo wrap-up.

Here I am with Emily Manning from the International Reading Association. Emily hosts a children’s book podcast on the IRA’s ReadWriteThink website (thus all the fancy recording equipment). We talked about THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. for an upcoming episode.

From left to right, that’s me, G. Neri, Jo Knowles (at her book signing!) and Lisa Yee.

Maggie Stiefvater signs copies of SHIVER and its sequel, LINGER, at Scholastic.

Maureen Johnson was signing her Scarlett books right next to Maggie. Over her shoulder, that’s author David Levithan, wearing his Scholastic editor hat and supervising the event. He’d been signing copies of WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, his new book with John Green earlier in the day.

Here’s Rebecca Stead, signing FIRST LIGHT and WHEN YOU REACH ME at Random House.

It’s always fun spotting friends’ books at these events. Kay Cassidy’s THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY was on display at the Egmont Booth, along with Lindsay Eland’s SCONES AND SENSIBILITY (below).

Scott Westerfeld signs copies of LEVIATHAN and shows off the art from that book.

The funny & charming Kevin O’Malley signed a copy of his new Miss Malarkey book for my daughter.

On my way to grab a quick lunch Saturday, I spotted Jeff Kinney signing DIARY OF A WIMPY KID books.

Here’s a photo of one of my tables at the Middle Level Mosaic, which was sort of like an author speed-dating event. There were at least a couple dozen tables like this in the Marriott ballroom, each one with a teacher facilitator and an author. Each author spent 8-9 minutes at a table, talking about his or her book, writing, and teacher resources, and then at the end of that time, we got up and moved to the next table. Each author visited three tables, and there were great speeches interspersed during this event, too. (More on those later in the week when I’ve had time to go through my notes.)

Meanwhile, the fun continues in Philadelphia today and tomorrow with the ALAN workshop. Here’s hoping that some of the authors & teachers still in Philly will keep blogging and tweeting all the great things going on. Have a great Thanksgiving week, everyone!