Author: Cindy

I want to thank Nikole at Scholastic Canada for sending me an ARC of Rose Sees Red to read and review (My review will be up this week.) and for telling me that Cecil was going to be in town on August 21st (Saturday).

I have to be honest and say that up until I got the book and email I have never heard of Cecil before. So when I heard that she was a local author I got pretty excited because I love to discover new (to me) and local authors.

After getting this email with the info about the when and where of the double book signing I quickly emailed the Montreal group to see who wanted to come with me. Avis said she wanted to go so we made a plan to meet up and go together.

Even though I live in Montreal I have to say I can actually count the number of times I have been down town on two hands and I have lived in Montreal for almost 13 years now. I live roughly 20 minutes from down town (and that is on a quiet day with no traffic) and where I live I am close to everything so why would I go downtown?

There are exceptions to that and this is one of them. The Friday before the event I went to goggle maps to figure out my route via public transit and which one would work the best as I was going to meet Avis at a metro (subway) station and we were going to walk Babar en Ville. One nice thing about our metro system is the underground city. This particular metro station you can access so much without going outside to brave the elements such as the rain. We came out and to the left was:

(Babar is a great indie bookstore for children, middle grade and young adult books.)

As we were waiting a bit outside, guess who I spotted going into Babar? The one and only Cecil. I didn’t say anything to her because she was talking with her parents (which I only found out when she introduced them at the signing.)

We went in shortly after and looked around. I have to say that Babar en ville is exactly like the Babar that we have here in the village. Very small and filled with great books. Thankfully I didn’t have any extra money on me because I am sure I would have bought so many great books.

Just before the reading and signing I bought these two (to get signed) plus a surprise..hmm could it be a possible goodie for the giveaway? Hmm you will have to wait and see.

I have been picking up Geektastic everytime I went into a bookstore but always ended up putting in back and seeing it here I knew this time I had to get it and Cecil was one of the people who editted it so what better reason to pick it up?

Cecil read her first children’s picture book Grandma’s Gloves. What a beautiful story and while she was reading it I couldn’t help but think of my grandma.

Then after that Cecil read a passage from her newest book Rose Sees Red. If you haven’t read it yet you should its a really great story set in NYC in the 80s. As I was reading it I thought about my trip to NYC.

There was a Q&A and it was so nice to hear more about Cecil and her books. Then it was time to get books signed and I got the two above books signed plus my ARC of Rose Sees Red. It was funny because I was in front of Cecil and she had asked if one of us (Avis and I) was Cindy and I said I was and she said she had replied to my tweet (I told her in a tweet that I was going to see her the next day). Here I thought I might have been in trouble. 🙂

Cecil was very gracious and let us take pictures. For some reason this is the only one I got of Cecil and I together and actually of the whole event.

I am sure Avis will post her picture and post because she had her picture taken as well with her camera.

After getting our books and pictures done we got to snack on some lovely yummy cupcakes (me) and tea (avis) that Babar supplied for us.

Thanks Babar En Ville for hosting this great event and thanks to Cecil for coming. I am so looking forward to reading more of your books.