SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL at ALA, Displayed in the Combined Book Exhibit

SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL displayed at the ALA Combined Book Exhibit, June 2025

With many thanks to Colleen Paeff for stopping by the Combined Book Exhibit booth at the American Library Association annual conference in Philadelphia two weeks ago and taking a photo of my book SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was thrilled to see it so prominently displayed! I hope that some of the children's librarians attending the conference were able to see it and make the connection to my children's books. I know Colleen through two of my book discussion groups in LA and was glad she could be my eyes and ears at the conference. Colleen, a brilliant new nonfiction author, was at ALA signing her books The Big Stink and Firefly Song.

ALA CONFERENCE IN SAN DIEGO: Book Signing of PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6

American Library Association at the Convention Center, San Diego, CA

I had a great day yesterday at the American Library Association conference at the Convention Center in San Diego, California. The exhibit halls were filled with hundreds of booths and the aisles crowded with librarians and library people from all over the country. 

With Andrea Brown in the Charlesbridge booth at ALA

In the afternoon, for more than an hour, a steady stream of people came as I signed copies of the new paperback edition of PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6 in the Charlesbridge booth. Many thanks to Donna Spurlock, Director of Marketing, for setting up the signing and to Lindsay Atkins for making sure that everything ran smoothly. And thanks to my agent Andrea Brown for assisting at the signing table as I signed books and chatted with librarians. I was pleased to hear how much they enjoy using my books with kids.

With Lindsay Atkins in the Charlesbridge booth at ALA

The evening before I attended a lovely party at the home of Kelly Sonnack celebrating Andrea and the agency she has built over the last forty plus years. I was one of Andrea's first authors when it was just Andrea. Now the Andrea Brown Literary Agency has grown to fifteen agents with hundreds of authors! Congratulations Andrea!

With Andrea Brown

BOOK SIGNING of Planting a Garden in Room 6 at ALA in SAN DIEGO, June 30th. SAVE THE DATE!

A week from today at 2pm I will be signing my book PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6 at the San Diego Convention Center in the Charlesbridge booth  (#1823) on the exhibits floor of the American Library Association annual conference. Planting a Garden in Room 6 and the other two Room 6 books, Hatching Chicks in Room 6 and Butterflies in Room 6 are newly published this year in paperback. If you are going to be at ALA that day, I hope to see you there!

BOOK SIGNING AT ALA in WASHINGTON, DC

In the Junior Library Guild booth at ALA in Washington, DC

I had a great day on Saturday at ALA in Washington, DC, signing KEEPER OF THE LIGHT in the Abrams booth and PLANTING A GARDEN in the Charlesbridge booth, and cruising the aisles of the exhibit hall to see all the publishers' new books! 

In  the Abrams booth at ALA

Many thanks to Nina Greuner, publisher of Cameron Kids, and everyone in the Abrams booth for hosting me in the booth and keeping the signing line going smoothly. 

In the Charlesbridge booth at ALA

And thanks to Donna Spurlock, Meg Quinn, Lindsay and Jaliza, and everyone in the Charlesbridge booth for coordinating my signing there. At both booths we ran out of books before the hour was over! It was great meeting librarians from so many places.

I also stopped by the Junior Library Guild booth and posed for a photo with PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6 which was a Spring selection.

Everyone in the convention center was required to be vaccinated and wear a mask (although I took mine off briefly for the photos.) Everyone, including me, seemed happy to be at a live, real person event!

CELEBRATING NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK: My First Library

Central Avenue Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, built in 1915

National Library Week (April 3 - 9, 2022) is a time to celebrate our nation's libraries, library workers' contributions and promote library use and support. First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and observed in libraries across the country each April.

I have been going to the library ever since I can remember. When I was four years old my family moved to Northeast Minneapolis and family trips to the public library on Central Avenue were a Saturday morning ritual. While my parents picked out their books in the main room upstairs, my brothers and I scoured the shelves in the downstairs children’s room. I liked story books like Madeline, Curious George and Ferdinand. Steve loved books about trains. Peter liked sports and Tom picked out books about animals. Later, back in our apartment at North East Neighborhood House, we crowded onto the sofa or one of our beds and listened as our parents read to us. 

Among our favorite books was Minn of the Mississippi by Holling C. Hollings, packed with facts and detailed illustrations about everything from the history of the Earth to cell division. Minn, a snapping turtle, travels the length of the Mississippi River from its headwaters in northern Minnesota to the Delta in Louisiana. It was easy to imagine the story. We caught snapping turtles lurking in the reeds along the shore at Camp Bovey. The Mississippi River was just a few blocks from our home at North East Neighborhood House, its deep waters rushing over St. Anthony Falls, powering the flour mills flanking the riverbanks. Every kid, including me, could rattle off—MI-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I --as proof of their spelling prowess. When I was thirteen, our family visited the Mississippi’s source in Itasca State Park, where Minn begins his journey south. I attempted to cross the narrow stream that pours out of the lake. But walking across the Mississippi isn’t so easy. I took off my shoes and got halfway to the other side, but the rocks were slippery and the water swift. I lost my footing and fell in. 

Note: The Central Avenue Library building that I remember from my childhood was built in 1915 with funds from Andrew Carnegie. It was torn down in 1971 and replaced with a modern glass and brick building, then remodeled and enlarged in 2011.

 

ALA Annual Conference, Chicago: Book Signing at Charlesbridge

In the Charlesbridge booth at ALA with Editor Karen Boss

On Saturday and Sunday, June 24th and 25th, I attended the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago, Illinois, held at the huge McCormick Center in downtown Chicago. On Saturday I cruised the hundreds of booths in the exhibit hall looking at the new books, collecting posters and a few books, chatting with editors and promotion people, and meeting other authors. That evening I was pleased to meet up with author Dori Hillestad Butler, other authors, and librarians at the grand reception put on by the Junior Library Guild at the famous Chicago Art Institute. (Hatching Chicks in Room 6 was a JLG selection this year.) After refreshments we were invited to browse the galleries and I became reacquainted with some of the museum's most famous paintings including George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, Vincent Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles and a number of Claude Monet's haystack paintings. I have fond memories of visiting the museum when I was in college and art school in Iowa (we rode to Chicago on the train) and haven't been back since, so it was a delight to visit again. The museum has grown enormously with several additional modern wings. Thanks to JLG for a lovely event!
On Sunday morning I signed Hatching Chicks in Room 6 in the Charlesbridge booth and was pleased with the number of people who stopped by and bought books. Many of them told me stories of hatching chicks both at home in their schools. Clearly, it is a popular project, not just in kindergarten, but in all grades. Thanks to everyone in the Charlesbridge booth for helping the signing go smoothly! I had a great ALA!

SAVE THE DATE! ALA Chicago: Signing in the Charlesbridge Booth, Sunday, June 25 at 10:00

SAVE THE DATE!
If you are going to be at the American Library Association Conference in Chicago, June 22-27, 2017, I will be signing my new book Hatching Chicks in Room 6 in Room 6 at the Charlesbridge booth #3522 on Sunday, June 25th at 10:00 a.m. Please stop by! I'd love to see you!

Book Signing: American Library Association Conference, San Francisco

Signing A Day and Night in the Forest in the Capstone Booth, ALA, San Francisco

The American Library Association Conference met in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center June 25-30, 2015 and I spent two very full and exciting days in the Exhibit Halls signing books, meeting friends, and roaming the aisles to attempt at view all the new books. In the Capstone booth, on Saturday, June 26, I signed A Day and Night in the Forest, one of four new books in the Caroline Arnold’s Habitats series. There was a long line and I signed furiously until all the books were gone. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet librarians and fans from all over and I thank Jennifer Glidden, the marketing manager at Capstone, for making all the arrangements, taking photographs, and for helping everything go smoothly. I enjoyed the chance to meet the other Capstone people in the booth as well and to chat with editor Michelle Bisson.

Outside the Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco

The ALA convention was also an opportunity to meet with my agent, Andrea Brown, with whom I had a delicious lunch, and my editor at Charlesbridge, which will be publishing my book Living Fossils next year. I have already seen the proof pages with terrific illustrations by Andrew Plant. And I stopped by the StarWalk Kids booth to find out the latest news about the StarWalk Kids digital library, which includes many of my older books. Their catalogue, which continues to grow, now has more than 500 titles!

I went to the convention with my friends and fellow authors Joanne Rocklin and Susan Meyers (who both live in the Bay Area) and as we roamed the aisles we kept running into many of our other author friends as well as many of the librarians we have gotten to know over the years. That is one of the great things about ALA–the chance to meet and renew friendships, all in the midst of thousands of new and wonderful books from publishers big and small. I came home with a bag full of books, catalogues, posters and more. I only go to ALA when it meets in California, which occurs every five years or so. This conference brought back memories of my very first ALA, also in San Francisco, back in 1981, when I was a new author. I remember being overwhelmed by the wealth of books and publishers. I still am.