Do not lean to close to the screen whilst reading this; I have a Summer Death Cold and don’t want to infect you. I ran this post through the anti-virus thingie, but you know viruses; always mutating.

Wash your hands when you are finished reading. And increase your Vitamin C intake.

And now to my ALA recap. (I did shoot some video footage, but my brain is too fuzzy to piece it together now. Watch this space next week.)

My hotel was delightfully near the White House, so I ran past it nearly every morning. Did not see the First Dog or the First Garden, sadly.

Simon & Schuster held a wonderful dinner in honor of FORGE (comes out October 19 – mark your calendars!)

Another shot from the dinner. We ate at a suitably 18th-century room in the Hotel Tabard Inn. It was very exciting to be able to talk about FORGE finally!

  The highlight of the trip was signing the Advance Reading copies of FORGE (tho’ I was bummed that they did not contain the backmatter – you’ll find that in the finished book.) I also stole a few minutes to walk around the floor. Here is Tony DiTerlizzi about to ravish the BoundTo Stay Book 90th birthday cake. The cake was made by Charm City Cakes, of course!



Tony’s newest masterpiece, The Search for Wondla, comes out on September 21. Click through the link to see art from the book. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THIS ONE!!

I did a fair amount of stalking on the exhibit floor. Here are Kacy Cook, Catherine Balkin, and Arnold Adoff.

Judith Viorst and Lane Smith.

Mo Willems!

John Green and David Levithan. (I heard raves about their book, WILL GRAYSON,WILL GRAYSON, from teen readers.)

I also caught up with one of my favorite book clubs in America…

The Eva Perry Mock Printz Club from North Carolina.

There seemed to be more teens than usual at ALA this year, and I think that is a Very Good Thing. Here I am hanging out with Charley from Vermont, whose parents write The Jaguar Stones books. (Photo courtesy of J & P Voelkel and Elizabeth Law of Egmont.)

One of the best parts of ALA is running into old friends and celebrating their new books. On the left, my FORGE editor, Caitlyn Dloughy talks to my pal, Mitali Perkins, about Mitali’s wonderful new book, Bamboo People.

Linda Sue Park!!!

And my buddies David Gill and Tanya Lee Stone, both with new books out.

Many, many, MANY thanks to all the readers and librarians who came our to hear all of us speak and to share in our passion for creating books for kids and teens.

Now go wash your hands!