a most incredible Bank Street Book Fest

How lucky am I?

What an incredible line-up.

I will learn so much.

I am grateful.

Thank you, Jennifer Brown, Bank Street, and all those writers, reviewers, librarians, teachers, thinkers that I will learn from soon.

You can register at Bank Street College. And I hope you will.

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The Caldecott Panel—Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, Brian Selznick, Jennifer Brown—celebrates Children's Book World's 25th

Today is not just the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. It's the 25th anniversary of the remarkable, enduring, smart, and somehow simultaneously huge and intimate Children's Book World of Haverford, PA.

As part of the celebration, CBW hosted The Caldecott Panel at Friends' Central School—the very best of the very best right there on City Line Avenue. Chris Van Allsburg. David Wiesner. Brian Selznick. And Jennifer M. Brown as moderator of what quickly became a wide-ranging conversation about black and white vs. color, visual narratives, filmic translations, the plot power of the artistic media, the certain school of design attended by all three of these great storytellers (RISD), and who taught who, or who might have taught who, or who wished they had taught who.

There they sat on one long couch and two book-ending chairs, surprising each other, while Jenny Brown, who knows this business better than anyone anywhere (our Ambassador of Children's Literature, I've always said), asked her intelligent questions, sat back, and enjoyed the surprises, too.

A packed house. An eager audience. Dozens of hands flying up during the Q and A—half of those hands belonging to children.

You want to celebrate one of the top children's book stores in the country? I can think of no better way.

Congratulations, CBW. The lovely lady with the dark tresses, by the way, is CBW's own Heather Hebert.

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Handling the Truth: The Shelf Awareness Review (oh!)

Last night, as I sat waiting for the curtains to rise on the 50th season of Pennsylvania Ballet—as I sat waiting, especially, for the gorgeous (inside and out) Julie Diana and her wonderful husband, Zachary Hench, to dance "Diamonds," a piece I had watched them rehearse a week or so before—I thought, Stop, Beth. Live this moment. Don't let it rush by.

I sat on the edge of my seat. I sat watching through streaming tears. This ballerina and her husband and that corps. The exhilarating precision and grace and humanity of it all. When art finds you, let yourself be found. Stop hurrying. Be.

Oh, how they danced. How exquisite Julie is. How other-worldly talented is her Zak. How right they are together.

This morning, too, I am stopping. I am putting aside the hurry of corporate work for just this hour and allowing myself to feel grateful for the journey I have lately been on. So many of you have been so kind to me, and have I thanked you enough? I have met such interesting people along the Handling the Truth way. Just this week I talked to the great Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, and now I look ahead to weekend conversations with Liz Rosenberg (at Big Blue Marble Bookstore, in Mount Airy) and fellow memoir summitters (at Rosemont College). I look ahead to a fantastic, multi-tiered event at Bank Street in New York City, created by the Ambassador of Children's Books (my title for her), Jennifer M. Brown, and to a conversation with Dani Shapiro as part of the First Person Arts Festival. I look toward a conversation at Kelly Writers House (and a radio recording) and a conversation on behalf of Kelly Writers House (off Rittenhouse Square), and to more workshops, and to my upcoming road trip with the fabulous A.S. King, as we join the Pennsylvania Library Association (and others of our writing friends) in western Pennsylvania.

In any life, this would be a lot. In my life, it is huge. And again: Have I thanked all of you enough?

My gratitude is here. My gratitude is huge. And I am giving this particular hour over to my gratitude (not a big enough word) to Jennifer M. Brown, who has just now posted this beautiful review of Handling the Truth in today's Shelf Awareness. Jenny and I, we just love books. We can't help ourselves. And I adore Jenny. That's just how it is and will be.

My cup runneth over.

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Jenny Brown, our nation's ambassador for children's books, assumes new responsibilities at the Center for Children's Literature

See that pretty lady up there?  The one beside the Olympian in purple (Kristi Yamaguchi)?  That is my friend, Jenny Brown, though if I claim her as my own friend this morning, it is not to negate her friendships with and toward the entire world of children's publishing.  Jenny has done it all in her publishing life—teacher, editor, mentor, reviewer, Twenty by Jenny-er, and (I like to call her this) crusader.  You most recently know her as the children's book editor of Shelf Awareness, but as of today you will also know her as the part-time Interim Director of the Center for Children's Literature at the Bank Street College of Education, a position which she describes as "an organic evolution of my work on the Children's Book Committee, where we read books together as reviewers, social workers, teachers, librarians, historians, and art directors." Jenny calls the Center a think tank and she will have an opportunity to play a big role in shaping the reading life of children.

Who could be better for this position?  No one.  Jenny loves good books, she loves the people who make them, she loves the people for whom good books are made.  She's also a very fine writer—and singer—as I found out when I interviewed her for Publishing Perspectives.  Here's that piece, in case you somehow (how could you?) missed it.

Congratulations, Jennifer M. Brown!

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