The Possibilities of a Variety of Saints
This Saturday I attended a book release party for The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas. Yes yes, the book is YA, but how could I resist an invitation that asked me to, "Make up your own saint specialty and come dressed for the part"?
Fair enough. So how do you go about creating a Be a Saint party? Well, first you take at look at the cover of you book. In this particular case it looks like this:
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Next, you have a scrim printed out that resembles the background. And finally you get your very lovely husband Josh Dodes to take pictures of you and your guests. Here are a couple folks who were in attendance.
Authors Lisa Graff (The Thing About Georgie) as the Patron Saint of Book Jackets (to whom all smart writers pray) and Donna Freitas as the Patron Saint of the Oscar Gown.
Editor Cheryl Klein, Patron Saint of the Chrysler Building (you can’t tell here, but it actually lights up inside).
Editor Alvina Ling, Patron Saint of Delicious Candy (note the lollipop halo)
And finally . . .
Me. The Patron Saint of the Caldecott Medal.
I’ve stuck medals to the headband and I’m holding Highway Cats by Janet Taylor Lisle partly because it matches the dress and halo and partly because that’s what I happened to have in my bag to read on the subway that day.
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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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The Maria Goretti eyes are particularly good.
Yay, Donna, for such a gorgeous book, fab dress, and killer party! And OMG, Betsy, you should wear YOUR dress every day. Well, maybe not on the subway…
You could always have gone as Saint Cupcake. [ http://www.saintcupcake.com ]
Actually, someone else came as the Saint of Cupcakes. With cupcakes. How do you even top that?
Wow, what a send-off for HIGHWAY CATS, whose pub date is tomorrow, Sept 18th! All the highway cats, Shredder, Murray the Claw, Khalia Koo, whose siamese eyes match your adorable dress, and me (half cat after writing this story) give out a rattling purr of appreciation.
Gosh I wish I were clever enough to actually plan these things out. It’s odd to have a bunch of ARCs sitting on your shelf for months at a time and then to find that they’ve come out at the exact moment you’ve read them. I enjoyed your book heartily, Ms. Lisle, but I’ll be having a devil of a time reviewing it. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before. Seriously.
I guess I could venture to say that there’s more to it than first meets the eye. I’ll have a paragraph or two up on my website in the next day or so giving my views on it, for what they’re worth.
I wish I could have gone to that party! I would have gone as the patron saint of Ambiguous Produce, though I’d have had to get creative for my garland of tomatoes, avocadoes, olives and rhubarb.
And those cupcakes were really, really good. I’ll pray to Saint Beth every time I put sweet, chocolatey batter in the oven.
Hehe! Looks like a great party. I especially like the adoration photo. It’s a very cute book, too.
I was the patron saint of cupcakes! How nice to find that you are all saying nice things about me here (or at least my saintly alter-ego)! I guess I never had my picture taken in front of the halo though–how did I miss that?