I got to travel to Naperville this past Saturday to attend Anderson's Bookshops' 8th Annual Young Adult Literature Conference. It was held at a hotel, not the bookshop, and it was packed with authors including Sharon Draper, Mike Lupica, Lisa McMann, Patrick Carman, Jacqueline Woodson, and Coe Booth (and that's not even ALL of them.) A few of my favorite moments from the day:
1. Debut author Torrey Maldonado describing the magic found in opening a book that you want to read and sharing how being a teacher after trying other jobs has given him the most amazing seven years of his life.
2. Mike Lupica revealing his son's real-life basketball troubles and turning the experience of coaching that team of misfits-turned-champions into his book Travel Team.
3. Lisa McMann joking about hating school and faking sickness to stay home and read. She also described how she tells the students she visits that they don't have to be adults to write books or come up with good ideas or illustrations. Then she demonstrated how her own son had helped her while writing her latest book The Unwanteds by drawing some of the creatures she wanted to put in the novel.
4. Patrick Carman is one charming guy. I loved when he projected not-so-flattering elementary & middle school photos of himself. He also commented on coming to writing later in life and finally figuring out what his father had been trying to show him: Do something you love, even if it might be risky. You can always try again.
5. Sharon Draper's reading of letters she's received from fans. "I need the date of your birth and your death and three accomplishments" was one example. She communicated how her love of languge is a blessing and gift. When she writes, the words come to her, giving her, like Torrey talked about, the ability to take words and make magic.
Only bad thing about the conference: I am terrible at chatting up new folks and that makes me feel a bit like a failure for not making all the connections one's supposed to make at these conferences.
After my long day at the conference, I got to rest on Sunday, but then Monday came and I had to do another scary thing: Give an hour-long talk about Banned Books Week at the UI. Giving any kind of talk makes me nervous. Giving a 60-minute talk on a topic which I am definitely not all that knowledgeable about made me even more worried. But it all went well. I presented the talk with a co-worker, so we divided and conquered. The hour timeframe was cut by a quarter because of announcements from the group. And the students who came to the lecture were interested in a nice, non-threatening way.
Book reading: I finished Divergent
by Veronica Roth. This is another dystopia novel set in a future Chicago where society is divided into five factions: Abnegation, Candor, Amity, Erudite, and Dauntless. The main character of the story is Beatrice, born in the self-sacrificing Abnegation faction but secretly longing for something else. The book was interesting and I enjoyed the future Chicago setting. The description of Beatrice's, or "Tris's," trials as she is tested to the limits are harrowing. It's the first in a series, and I liked it enough to give the second book a try.
When Divergent got too intense, I read Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick. If you loved Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, I think you'll love this one, too. It's another story in words and pictures and the words are about a 12-year-old who's lost his mother and travels alone to New York City to try to find the father he never knew. The pictures tell a different story set in an earlier time about a deaf girl trying to find her own way in New York City. An interesting book, for sure.
0 comments:
Post a Comment