Month: June 2010

Wednesday was the day that the Exhibit floor officially opened to the public. I was super excited because I was taking part in the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast.

The Master of Ceremonies was Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. She briefly made a few jokes about what was happening to her outside of BEA, getting to BEA (she encountered a few people in her way) and using some of the titles of her newest books Helping Hands series- Don’t talk to strangers etc about her situation.

She introduced Cory Doctorow, Mitali Perkins and Richard Peck. The each spoke briefly about their books.

I am sure Cory had a few people in tears during his speech because he got emotional talking about his book. Mitali’s talk was beautiful. She spoke about her book Bamboo People and that books can either be a mirror (in which you can see yourself/situation in) or a window (in another world, time or place other then now). Richard had the whole crowd laughing. He was a fantastic speaker.
These are the books I picked up at the breakfast:
-Emily’s First Day of School by Sarah Ferguson
-Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
-Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck
-For The Win by Cory Doctorow (not pictured)

During the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast I sat with Kathy-Bermudaonion, Julie-Booking Mama, Alea-Pop Culture Junkie, Gail-Ticket To Anywhere and Shanya-Chick Loves Lit.

After the breakfast I said a quick hi to Natasha-Maw Books and Amy-My Friend Amy before I quickly ran off, I wanted to get to the Sourcebooks booth because I really wanted to get a copy of The Days of Our Lives book signed.

I knew Ken Corday was going to be there and only found out the night before that Kristian Alfonso was going to be there signing too. She was super sweet and so friendly. It was so nice to get to talk to her briefly about the Hope storyline.

The next signing I had to quickly get to was the Rick Springfield one. This was one super long line but it went really quickly.

Rick was super nice. He gave one of the best hugs. We got to briefly speak about his upcoming tour and his stop in Montreal. I am anxiously awaiting for his book to come out this fall.

After I got my cd promo signed (its full of his hit songs) I looked around for a bit but didn’t want to go to far because I was going to be meeting up with Paul from Sourcebooks and some bloggers.

I briefly got to speak with Paul in the morning and was really looking forward to going back to the booth to hear about the fall books. I have to say there is alot of great YA books coming out this fall.

A pleasant surprise was seeing Helen Ellis the author of The Turning there. She is so friendly and sweet. Dying to read her book now.

In the booth listening was several bloggers: Kathy, Julie (here is a picture of Julie and I) Avis, Donna, Linda and Pam-Bookalicio.us.

(This is where I wish I had taken more pictures. Oh well there is always next year.)

After Sourcebooks I decided that I wanted to look around before doing any more author signings.

On my journey around the booths I remembered that Ethan Zohn (He was on Survivor Africa, the third season and was the winner.) was signing his book Soccer World Africa. I unfortunately missed out on the book as he had no copies left when I got there. I did get the chance to speak with him about me being a Survivor fan, etc and I graciously asked if I could get a picture with him and promised that I would return the next day to get his other book signed Soccer World Mexico. (Which I did do.)

Check back later on today when I do a OTDLW post about my night in NYC.

I meant to add this to yesterday’s post but didn’t get the chance so I will start off saying that I really enjoyed my stay at the Hampton Inns Madison Square Garden. The staff was super friendly from the time of check in (even with the slight credit card problem) to the time of check out.

This is our room. I am in the far bed close to the window. When they say NY hotel rooms are small they are not lying. The room was super comfortable and honestly it felt like I was staying in someone’s bedroom and not a hotel.

It was an early morning for me on Tuesday. I was woke up by the construction going out on the street or the building across the way from the hotel. I was surprised at how early it happens though.

One of the perks was the hot/cold breakfast that was served daily. The selection was amazing. They always had fresh fruit, yogurt and eggs out.

As we were walking down Broadway we stumbled upon the Snapple people and they were giving away FREE bottles of Snapple juice and of course I was super excited to see what it was and practically did a happy dance right there in front of the Snapple people.

This is the Bret Michael’s drink “Trop-A-Rocka” He was the winner of Celebrity Apprentice. The drink was delicious. Fingers crossed that it will make its way to Canada very soon. If not I will be hitting up the stores when I go to Chicago. [There is where I admit I have a crush on Bret :)]

I met up with the Montreal bloggers early that morning and we made our way to:

This was my first time visiting the Strand and wow what a bookstore. They had several floors of books. I looked around the first floor, the second floor at the YA and children’s books and then made my way to the basement to check out their review books.

Of course no trip to the Strand wouldnt’ be complete with buying: (totebags and books)

I bought:

• This is New York by M. Sasek (Michael and I were talking about this one before I went and he said he would like to have it so I was happy to pick up this for him.)
• Dream Life by Lauren Mechling
• Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev
• I Now Promounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan
• 5 postcards (not pictured)

I also managed to pick up a few Strand bookmarks as well that they had on the counter.

We also decided to check out the hidden gem of Housing Works . What a cute looking used bookstore they have. I meant to take some pictures but I was too busy looking around. I ended up buying 6 books at $3 each.

This is where we parted ways with Donna and her husband and the rest of us went to Wendy’s for lunch after much searching for a place to eat. After lunch Tina and Avis went off and Linda and I went back to the hotel room to drop off our books and pick up the papers so we could get our badges and be ready for the next morning because I was also taking part in the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast.

Upon arriving at the BEA convention you can’t help but be overwhelmed. The Javits building is huge. I couldn’t get onto the convention floor but looking in was amazing seeing all those booths and people setting up.

For dinner we went and ate at what I think was a hidden little gem called Franchia. The food was delicious. We all had something different, I had the Pumpkin Noodles Salad. It was to die for. This is a cute little place with the cutest bathroom by far of what I saw in NYC. I would definetly go back there to eat again.

With a quick trip to JC Penney after dinner in a hunt for sneakers (for me and more poor blister. No Luck!)we went back to the room to plan for the next day.

Check back tomorrow to see what happens at BEA.