So, Sunny and I got up bright and early because for some reason we had it in our minds that the author breakfast hosted by Chelsea Handler was this morning. We were wrong. We arrived at Javits Center only to discover that it was a ghost town and most things were not starting until tomorrow. So it's 8am and our meet up with the other booksellers for the Illustrators tour is a little over an hour away. We grab some starbucks and Sunny discovers in her purse the magical paper that would have allowed us to sleep another hour.
We go down to find our groups, sadly Sunny and I are in separate groups for the tour and will be seeing separate illistrators. Before our groups are to load onto the busses we have time for the ABA talk with John Sargent that is being covered by C-Span. John Sargent serves as Head of U.S. Operations of Macmillan Limited. More than that he is the booksellers champion. He alone led the resistance to try and stop Amazon from controlling 90% of the market share on e-books by lowering it's prices to exclude all other retailers. He has been in an embittered battle with the Department of Justice. Many publishers started with him along with Apple but when the going got tough he stood, and still stands alone. The story is far more in-depth than this short blog can express but just know the room was filled with his faithful followers, believers ready to follow him anywhere. He spoke with great pride, strength and hope. It was one of those moments when you knew the voice your were hearing would one day be remembered in reflections of heroism. He believes we should not buy into the artificial acceleration of digital media over the printed word and so much of what he said resonated with me that I was ready, instantly, to stand by him and fight the good fight. Starting the day with him made me proud to be a bookseller and set the tone for the rest of the day.
Once John's talk wrapped I met up with my small group, there was four of us, and we headed out to the shuttle bus. Our group consisted of a couple, married 45 years, who co-own an indie book store in a small Wisconsin town. It also had, obviously me, and Andrea our fearless leader who heads up SCIBA, The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA). We loaded onto our bus along with a few others groups and pulled out. Behind me I heard two women having a conversation, one of them said "It's hard to have cohesion in my store when I have one full timer and the rest work part time. Even if they all have the best intentions, which they always don't, it's still hard." It was so sad to hear her say this coming right off the empowering lecture with Mr. Sargent. Even more so because our store is the complete opposite. With just two full-timers and a mix of part-timers there is still cohesion amongst us. We are also all committed, dedicated and innovating in our company. We have created so many programs that support the community, our brand, and the success of the store. I thanked God on this ride that our little shop and little family could never make those types of comments, not if we're being honest. The bus stopped, let us all out in a neutral place, and we headed for the subway.
Our first stop was with Pop-Up, author, illustrator, engineer, extraordinaire Matthew Reinhart. An award winning genius, who sells great in our store, his pop ups are like none you've ever seen. The great part is, for what you get, I'd say they are reasonably priced. We had the honor and distinction on our first stop with Mr. Reinhart to hang out in his studio and have him explain to us his work process.
He even gave us a sneak peek of the Transformers Pop-up that he just finished, set for distribution next year.
He and I hit it off great when I showed him the intricate Reinhartesque Mother's Day card my son made for me, via pics on my phone. He offered me a free book from his desk but it was one my son already owns.
Matthew was great but I was not prepared for who came next on our tour. We headed back to the train which lead us to the studio of Anita Lobel.
Anita Lobel is well known and well loved. She received the Caldecott Honor for her illustrations in On Market Street, and her memoir, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has illustrated nearly 100 books over the decades and was married to Arnold Lobel most know for his series Frog and Toad.
It was a question I asked, "Where did you grow up", that opened up an intimate discussion. She went on to tell me that she didn't grow up, she survived. Right there on the spot she told us of how she and her brother survived the holocaust. I told her about my family members who were in the 761st Tank Battalion, Black soldiers who fought as tankers in WWII. The room disappeared, my group, her staff, the publishing rep, they all vanished. It was a private, intimate conversation about race between just Anita and I, we both cooed over each other and our storytelling. And just as quickly as they had vanished when we both felt totally fed from the conversation the rest of the room reappeared and we drank the glasses of wine Anita insisted we have. As we were leaving she gave us each an original hand drawing she had done, this is mine above. She personalized it, looked at me and said "It was a pleasure to meet you my dear, you were the right person for me to tell my story to". I fought back the tears hugged her and we left as we were already very late to get to our last illustrator on the tour.
We were so late that Chris Rashcka was leaving his studio when we got to his building. He saw our BEA passes, explained to us he had another meeting but agreed to take us upstairs for a quick convo. Raschka, as we call him at the Little Shop, has created more than forty books and is a Caldecott Medal winner. Above he's showing us his process, as he paints instead of draws like most illustrators.
We wrapped up with Rascha and headed back to the hotel.
Sunny arrived at the hotel shortly after me toting the goodies from the illustrators her group has seen and we did some fast freshening up and changing to get ready for the evening's parties. First stop Divergent with Veronica Roth. This party was held in an actual speakeasy, no signs on the door just a lady outside to direct us. We found a spot out back, drank their free licquor and made friends with some cool ladies from a bookstore in Northern California. A rep from the publisher went to grab someone she thought might find my stories fascinating. I told a few of my normal crazy Kim true tales and this woman was into it. When I left Sunny laughed in the cab about how I had no idea the woman was the main attraction Ms. Veronica Roth herself, too funny. We left that party and headed over to a shin dig hosted by our illustrator buddy Peter Brown, whom I jokingly call my boyfriend. He just also happens to be this years Caldecott winner. He signed a book we needed him to personalize, an after that we mingled and drank a little. One of the people we mingled with was awesome children's author/illustrator Jon Klassen, the 2011 Caldecott winner. Yeah, yeah this day was epically awesome. The crazy part is my slight buzz combined with exhaustion is preventing me from going into detail about all the detailed moments that brought me tears of joy and falling to the ground laughter. This blog is written in broad strokes, take how exciting these strokes are, and multiple it by 10.
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