This year saw 21,000 attendees at American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Chicago. I spent most of my meals with publishers and two with dear friends whom I only get to see at these Conferences. One of the rituals is for the 2002 Newbery Committee to gather — for pictures, conversations, and composing an email to those who did not get to that particular Conference. On June 30th, 11 of the original 15 congregated post-Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder-banquet and spent quite a bit of time sitting comfortably together and discussing the current state of Children’s publishing, the possibilities of us organizing a literary retreat for ourselves, and job and family updates.
Here we can see Ken, Joann, Vauda, Deb, Jeri, Gail, and Kathy. Lisa Von Drasek is visiting, and Vicky is talking to someone out of frame. Patty had not arrived yet and Elizabeth was trying to get more glasses for us. We missed Lisa (in California), Junko (in Japan), Louise (in the UK), and Sharon (in North Carolina.)
I can’t wait to see many of us at Midwinter when we hold our yearly book debriefing and predictions of award winners!
This year marks the 75th Caldecott Medal ceremony and ALSC planned a series of celebrations. I didn’t attend the Preconference but heard that it was fabulous and got a taste of it from this Hornbook report. The Caldecott 75th Red Carpet showcased illustrators and banquet attendees who dressed up in honor of the award or particular books. Rocco A. took some great snapshots and posted on Flickr.
Monica had the great idea to honor David Macaulay’s 1991 Cadecott winner Black and White by dressing up in paper hats — and I took it one step further, going in an entire paper dress.
This is the inspiration:
This is the outcome:
Brian Selznick designed the logo for the Caldecott 75th Anniversary.
I’ll post more later!
Fairrosa Cyber Library 
