HubBub!

We just spent an amazing day at the HubBub in Boston.  It was the first (and we hope not last!) Boston Book Festival for Children!  Our main motivator was that we wanted to see one of our very favorite authors, Mo Willems!

And we did! He started out his reading (to a packed house!) by telling everyone that they should take their photos, and he posed in appropriate ways:

And then he insisted that EVERYONE put away cameras and have their hands free. It was awesome.  He said we were all there to experience the event, not document it.  It was delightful!  He read from Pigeon Needs a Bath, answers questions from the audience, read from I will Take a Nap (the latest in the Elephant & Piggie series) and was entirely delightful and wonderful the whole time.

And then, he ran to the back of the room and signed books!!!!

Here we are, having Mo Willems sign our copy of Hooray for Amanda her Alligator.

And yes, by the way, we DID dig deep into the Mo Willems catalog to get that one.  While all the other kids had their Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie books, I believe we impressed as being very committed Willems fans. He was lovely and excellent.  And now we have his signature and a doodle in our copy!

BUT WAIT -- that's not all!  The day continued with an all-day fest at Copley Place, featuring various literary characters, children's book publishers, workshops, puppet presentations, musical acts, storytelling, and just all around awesome-ness.  There were crafts, including those inspired by Willems:

We even found out the answer to life's age-old question: Where's Waldo?

Answer: OMG, he's RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!

We did the treasure hunt, which included getting stamps from various tents/groups that had exhibits and activities. So Lucy made a lightsaber at Einstein's Workshop, and even more exciting, she participated in the Build-a-Lair workshop at 826 Boston. Yes, she built a lair. 

Lucy took part in a photography contest (we'll keep you posted on the results!), made a parachute that she tested in a wind tunnel, and got to listen to the School of Rock band.  It was all incredibly awesome, and we can't wait to do it again next year!

Storytelling and Writing and Celebrity Sighting

The semester is heating up despite the super-cold weather, and there's not much time to take a breath. This may be the last post for a while, since my new boss job is pretty draining. But of late, there's been a lot of story-telling going on in our house, and much of it seemed worthy of documentation.

Lucy's reading has been moving ahead at a surprising pace.  Every day she's reading and writing more and more words.  She and her BFF Ruth together are quite a menace.  The other day, they created this protest sign, directed at Ruth's brother, Woody:

Don't you love the positive reinforcement there?

In addition, Lucy has been writing book after book.  It's a bit intimidating for other authors who live in the same house.  Recently, she's been doing these adorable little accordion fold books; they look like this:

Here's a closer view of the one on birds:

And here's the one on "Hot," which she has targeted at audiences age 2 & up:

And now that she can read and all, apparently she's writing a new book explaining to others how to read:

She's really onto something here.  The more kids she can teach to read, the more readers she'll have, and the more books she'll sell! Genius!

In other exciting Lucy-reading news, the other morning, she read me part of my own book (no not the academic one, the children's one).  It was a tear-inducing moment, I will confess.

Also, just because I wouldn't want you to hear this from someone else first, I thought I should let you know that I'm soon going to have another brush with a famous person.  That person is:

I am not going to type her name because I don't want it to be googled with "Lowell" and end up having my students find my blog.  Ahem.

Anyway, you may recall, that a while back, this happened:

And I wrote about it here: http://thischarmingoldhouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-meeting-literary-heroes-part-2.html 
Also, if you want to see me terrified and excited and living the dream, you can watch me introduce King on the official video of the event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8TkQvdJVbc&list=PLD91T9qx40vrwAuWOj0Rq5ysPBikIkgAo&index=2

Well, it seems we have a reprise, this Wednesday afternoon. I will be introducing our esteemed visitor (photo above).  So, as you can imagine, all I can think about now is: WHAT am I going to wear????  Also, I am hoping she will sign my clipboard.  In my new job as boss, I have a clip-board-based organization system that pleases me and terrorizes others.  There's a wall with project/problem-based clipboards, with appropriate labels.  The famous person has her own personally named clipboard.  I am looking forward to finishing that event (and retiring that clipboard) so that I can tend to the other, less glamourous, but nontheless pressing clipboards.

Perhaps you would like to see?

There you go.  Also, all the clipboards are full now (that was a photo from Day 1).  Now you know why my faculty are now calling me "Dread Chair Marshall," and cowering under my clip-board-based reign of terror.

So if I ever emerge from the impending week of celebrity-induced madness here on campus, I'll try to update you on our household's ever-growing web of celebrity connections.

Book Reviews (Children's Book Edition)

Lucy received some lovely books for Christmas, so I write to sing the praises of some her most recent favorites.

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

This is a lovely story with lovely pictures.  It's the tale of an old lady who goes by the name "Miss Rumphius" or "the Lupine Lady," and tells of how she planted the lupine all over her lovely land.  If you've been to Maine, you'll know what I'm talking about here -- the lupine are everywhere, and so very very lovely.  Miss Rumphius's goal (which she passes on to the young girl in the book, and thus, the reader, too) is to make the world more beautiful.  This seems a lovely aspiration.  The book pleases me and makes me want to make the world more beautiful, too.

Children Make Terrible Pets by Peter Brown

I love the illustrations in this, which feature an adorable bear.  That bear's name: Lucy.  Too perfect.  In this book, said bear goes out into the world and finds a child. She thinks it would be great to make that child into a pet.  But, as the title explains, "Children make terrible pets."  It's a keeper.  We actually checked this out from the library and accumulated some overdue fines for it.  We got Lucy another book by this author for Christmas: YOU WILL BE MY FRIEND!, which is also pretty great.


I think our previous review of favorite children's books neglected to mention another of our favorite authors, Mo Willems.  He's responsible for the insanely popular "Pigeon" books, including such classics as Pigeon Wants a Puppy, and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, which were in heavy rotation a couple years ago.


He is also responsible for the whole Elephant and Piggie series, which seems pretty huge.  We have three or so of them; my favorite is There is a Bird on my Head:

But there are tons more. Elephant and Piggie have some great comic back-and-forth, and they discuss important questions like "Are you ready to play outside?" "Can elephants dance?" and "Should I Share My Ice Cream?"  These are the tough questions kids have to face, and Elephant and Piggie help kids figure out the answers.

We're also very excited about a new development at one of our favorite publishers: McSweeney's.  Warning: unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or a huge amount of self-restraint in the browsing of the internets, don't click that link.  You can easily lose hours (pleasant hours!) spinning around McSweeney's Internet Tendencies.  The list of grammar- and punctuation-related bar jokes is worth the price. We're also big fans of Open Letters to People or Entities Not Likely to Respond.
They now have a brand new children's imprint: McSweeney's McMullens.  This link will take you to the page with links to the first four books in the series (we've already signed up for it & so far, they are amazing!).

That's all for now, but I hope to do more book-reviewing soon.  There are so many wonderful children's books -- Lucy's luck....and so are we!!