Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Newbery / Caldecott Banquet 2012


There's so much to share with you about the ALA conference that it's kinda hard to figure out where to start.

I'm not starting with myself, although I'll subject you to Schneider award talk later.

Probably.

Maybe.

(Focus, Wendelin, focus.)

I'm not going to tell you about the Newbery and Caldecott speeches either because that would take way too long and I'm already, what, three (yikes!) days behind on the non-place-holding post.

All I'm going to talk about today is the program of the Newbery / Caldecott banquet.

The program?

How boring is that?

Well, actually, no. It was very entertaining!

I'm not talking about the pre-speeches and gracious welcomes and introductions program. I'm talking about the physical program. I've never seen anything like it! It was so cool! And fun! And a nice thing to play with during the pre-speeches and gracious welcomes and introductions.

Okay. Check it out. This is what every one of the (approx) 750 people at the banquet had at their seat. Sitting there. On a plate. Begging you to slip off the yellow band and see what was inside.


And when you did and pulled up on the blue spiraled sections of the program, POP! a red "ball" jumped up. 




Underneath the red ball was the actual program, circular and in full, illustrated color.


Turns out that the winner of the Caldecott and his/her art director get to design the Banquet program each year (This year's winner was Chris Raschka for his artwork in A Ball for Daisy...which you probably picked up from the first graphic and which makes the whole program thing make sense.) Coolest program ever!

So that's the first leg of the ALA adventure. Have any of you ever attended?

More soon!

12 comments:

Kylie said...

No I have never been, but it sounds really cool thing to go to!

That program is really cool! I really like that Program. I wish my sisters FFA banquet programs where that cool so when I have to sit through 4 hours if a dinner on lunch room tables I could have something to entertain myself with.

So are we going to hear more of this ALA adventure? I hope so!

Ky

Gabrielle said...

What is ALA? I've never heard of it,but it sounds great!

Wendelin Van Draanen said...

ALA=American Library Association. It's a huge (25,000?) book people convention. This one was in Anaheim (CA) and was the big awards show.

Amanda from Seattle said...

actually, I know 2 other folks who were at this years event!! (one is another author and the other works for a publisher) but I have never been...and they both took the time to do a Disney visit too! :-)

Yusa said...

I was in LA last weekend so i'm bummed. The setting was really cool!
I searched ALA a few days ago on the night of the banquet and on the website people were tweeting about Jack Gantos. I want to hear about your award also.
Congratulations on it again!

--Yusayera

Optimistic4ever said...

Never been there but it sounds AMAZING! Hope to hear about ur award soon!

Anonymous said...

My sisters wedding invite was like that, but instead of a ball, a wedding flavored macaroon was inside. She's weird like that.
Ironically enough I read this post this morning and then we went to Boston, and there was this that book in the window of a bookshop we passed by. I took a photo of it.
also in Boston I saw a building named Dexter PRATT. Score. I got a picture.
Plus Fenway Park for the Red Sox. But yes, I see connections everywhere!
Oh and two days ago we went to an outlet mall in Massachussets (I'm in Rhode Island, I don't just randomly go to MA spontaneously) and in the outlet mall my mom and aunt went to a store called SOMETHING-WEDGWOOD. I forgot the first part of the name, insignificant. Wedgwood. Without the e in it. It was glass shop and the woman at the counter somehow seemed to know what part of IL I was from, but Wedgwood. There was a book that was like "The Wedgwood Book"
Me: "ooooh looks like my dream book!"
More about ALA, please? You stopped too soon!!

Anonymous said...

HAHA update: I just found a Sammy Metes and Avengers crossover story. I didn't get a chance to read it all, but apparently Billy is a huge fan of the Avengers? And they meet the Avengers, I guess. I'm thinking of Justice Jack and I literally laughed out loud when I made a certain connection. When I get back home I MUST read this genius combination. :))))
Ha, Loki and Heather. DOUBLE CONNECTION: Thor is a good guy and his brother is a bad guy. CASEY is a good guy and his sister is a, in sense, "bad guy". Plus Iron Man is a genius and so is Sammy. (Lets be honest, IRON MAN was the real star of the show...and Loki).
Done with the random connections, just had to add that.

Gillisbooks said...

Amanda from Seattle - you could go to the Midwinter ALA meeting Jan. 25-29 as it will be held in Seattle! I went to the banquet after the dinner (for free - it is rather pricey) to hear the speeches (which were great!!) but I didn't get a program :( Thank you for putting pictures up, maybe next year I'll spring for the dinner now that I know there will probably be cool programs. I'm so sorry I missed Wendelin's signing also Arghh - I was in a board meeting and thought I would sneak out but I couldn't do it. My favorite part of ALA meetings is the exhibit hall where all the publishers bring ARCs of their new books and give them away and in summer there are LOTS of authors there signing books which they sell at reduced prices. For librarians, authors are rock stars, so this is so much fun for us all. I highly recommend going if it is near you. They sell exhibit hall only tickets which are reasonable. Go to ALA's website and look under conferences for the dates and places for the next 5 years.

Optimistic4ever said...

Off on another one week camp :) Hope to hear more about ALA when I get back!

XxTuti17xX said...

It Sounds Like A RealLy Cool Program. I Want To Be An Author When I'm Older. Me And My Boyfriend Want To Write A Book Series. Ranging From 6 To 9 books. Also can't wait until you publish more on the ALA Program. Plus, 12 More Days Until Justice Jack Comes Out. I have it preordered on my nook
-XxSammyKeyesxX

Jessica said...

I found a video of someone opening the program (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiqNswL-FIA) while searching for more images to share with my graphic designer friend (her aesthetic seems similar to Raschka's to me, though I'm not very knowledgeable about art at all). I actually couldn't find any other pictures of the inside of the program, so thanks for sharing yours, Wendelin.

I'll have to look into local ALA conferences. Right now, I've found my local library system's writer's group (which meets every other month -- next meeting is at the end of July), so I'm going to start with that. Hopefully it'll help me become more disciplined with my writing.

Anyone else suffering through this heat wave? We hit 106 here yesterday, highest temp I've ever experienced. I went running in 86 degrees at 8:30am today, and it was nearly 100% humidity (and lots of smog already). Thankfully we have electricity and air-conditioning; a lot of my friends in the mid-Atlantic have lost power because of bad storms. I hope you're all staying cool.