Pretty exciting weekend for me!

This last weekend was the Oregon Association of School Libraries conference, and it was pretty exciting. For one thing, I got to meet some authors, which I totally love. I got to meet Gene Luen Yang, a Printz winning author, and his co-author Derek Kim. They were super cool guys and full of interesting information about comics and graphic novels. I found myself liking graphic novels a whole lot more after talking with them. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera when I was hanging out with them at breakfast. But it was superdy cool, I promise you. Here's a cartoon Gene drew of himself - not quite the same as a picture, but there you have it, it's all I've got to give you.

I also got to meet Gail Carson Levine who has written several books that I've really enjoyed, and who talked about some others I've never read. She shared quite a lot of poems she's written for a future book that I cannot WAIT to get my hands on. They're all modeled after William Carlos Williams' poem, "This is Just to Say". It's going to be dark and hilarious. Awesome. I DID have my camera when I met her, so here's a picture. She's a TINY woman, I am not really THAT giant!




I also got an award at the conference. It was announced in the spring, but the ceremony was at the conference. I was chosen as Oregon's Secondary School Librarian of the Year. It was pretty exciting to get the award :) The second picture was taken at the ceremony with my husband and my parents who all came to celebrate.

Next month I get to go to the American Association of School Librarians conference in Charlotte, NC. I won't be getting any award there, but I hope to meet a lot more authors - I'll have my camera handy ALL the time there, you can count on it!