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August 5, 2007 by Betsy Bird

Be Back, Be I

August 5, 2007 by Betsy Bird   9 comments

Most lovely.  Vacations are awesome.  I highly recommend them to each and every one of you.

Back from Stratford, I return.  Ontario, of course.  I doubt I’d be so cheery if I were to have just stepped off a smelly plane and taken the bus home at 2 in the morning.  Instead, yesterday I drove home, stopped by IKEA (we don’t usually have a car, you see), and bought enough items to transform my home office space from Unusable Desk Area into Charming Reading Room.  Fingers crossed on how long THAT will take.

I’ll not go point-by-point over my trip since I sincerely doubt you’d be interested in recaps of Niagara Falls (wet and full of woodchucks), costume warehouse tours (not wet, no woodchucks in sight), and other folderols.  This being a kidlit blog, that’s where I’ll concentrate my efforts.  Because my hobby is also my job, I was constantly on the look out for children’s books wherever I went.  In the meantime I also found time to see productions of Comedy of Errors, Oklahoma, The Merchant of Venice (with Grahame Greene!), and An Ideal Husband.

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My first thought upon entering the bookstores of Stratford was to locate titles that might not have entered the States quite yet, be they Canadian beauties or British wonders.  I saw a couple of things, but nothing that particularly got my heart ah-racing.  There was a rather lovely paperback edition of Fly By Night, which apparently came out when I wasn’t looking.  The cover is a curious amalgamation of both the American and British images (the border owing allegiance to the latter, the picture in the center to the former).  Fly By Night, should you be unfamiliar with it, was my favorite British children’s title of 2006 (my favorite American being A Drowned Maiden’s Hair).  Now about getting Verdigris Deep published here in America… *cough cough*

Lest you feel that the gift shops of the various theaters about town were bereft of new children’s materials, fans of Henry Holt and Company’s Young Reader titles will be pleased as punch to hear that there were abundant copies of In Search of Mockingbird by Loretta Ellsworth lying about the place.  One of the plays this season is Harper Lee’s classic, so it was more than fitting to feature Ellsworth’s book.  I haven’t read it myself, but I’ll try to get my hands on it at some point here.

The loveliest kidlit related moment, however, came in getting to meet Rebecca (a.k.a. R.J.) Anderson.  A Stratford resident, Ms. Anderson’s debut middle grade fantasy novel Knife is due out on bookstore shelves in 2010 via Harper Collins.  2010, people.  It must be nice to know what you’ll be doing that far in the future.  I haven’t a clue, personally.

In any case, Ms. Anderson was kind enough to drop everything that she was doing and hang out with me for lunch.  We knew a lot of the same people, which was nice.  She knows Cheryl Klein.  I know Cheryl Klein.  She knows the creator of The Leaky Cauldron, Melissa Anelli.  I met the woman one day at Book Expo (and was pleased to hear from Rebecca that Ms. Anelli will be producing a book of her own soon).

Here Rebecca was kind enough to pose with me in a bookstore in the downtown area. 



In short, I had a wonderful time.  My husband is now cooing over how cool it would be to retire to Stratford.  I am 29.  Retirement at 29 sounds great.  I’ve told him that once he secures the funds, I’m in.

Now today is Sunday and under usual circumstances I am inclined to produce literary videos of one sort or another. I make no exception today. Here, as found on the aforementioned R.J. Anderson’s Livejournal page, is a Scrabble-related bit of amusement for you.



Dunno about you but when I play Scrabble with MY Grandma, she tends to wipe the floor with me.

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. nallard says

    August 5, 2007 at 7:01 pm

    I will always remember a scrabble game with my grandmother. Her, my parents and I battling it out when I come up with one of those combination words, the kind that slip in to give you multiple words. To make this coup even sweeter it was a triple word score. I don’t remember what my primary word was, but my secondary one was “lo”. As in and behold. Now I’ll admit we weren’t a religious family and I haven’t seen lo much outside of King James, but even at the tender age of 10ish, I knew it was a legitimate word. Still I was challenged and despite the lack of a dictionary I was forced to remove my brilliant, high schoring word. Only a few turns later my grandmother used lo and nobody uttered a word. I have held the resentment I felt that day close to my heart ever since. And I made it my mission to wipe the floor with my grandmother ever since.

  2. Rebecca Sherman says

    August 6, 2007 at 7:07 am

    um…I could tell you a lot more about Ms. Anelli’s book…since I’m her agent. Thought you knew!

  3. Fuse #8 says

    August 6, 2007 at 7:49 am

    Rebecca, I’m getting suspicious here. How is it that EVERY person I meet is your client? You work with a lightning quick speed that should be the envy of your fellows, m’dear.

  4. LS says

    August 9, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    Verdegris Deep IS going to be published in the US sometime next year.

  5. Fuse #8 says

    August 9, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Hot diggety dog! Best news I’ve heard all day.

  6. QJO says

    August 10, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    Just got back from my own vacation — what a delightful surprise to find this entry here! It was a pleasure to meet you, and I do hope we’ll be able to touch base again should you ever return to Stratford (or should I ever make my way to New York, which at this point is looking less unlikely all the time).

  7. R.J. Anderson says

    August 10, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    *facepalms* Excuse me, I am a moron. I typed the comment verification letters into the Display Name box instead of, y’know, my actual name. *cough* Previous comment was mine…

  8. Rose Green says

    August 11, 2007 at 12:37 pm

    Wow, how cool to check your blog and find someone I know on it!

    I’ve had the chance to read some of Rebecca’s stuff, and it’s fantastic. I can’t wait for it to be on the shelf. I realize 2010 is a bit far away, but I’ve already started telling people to watch for Knife.

  9. LindaBudz says

    August 15, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Knife sounds like such a cool read!

    And thanks for the video … though my all-time favorite Scrabble-related short is still the one at zefrank.com. Funny! Check out his “Popular” page or do a search on his site for Scrabble to find it. (Warning: there is some language in the video).

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