Texas Library Association Conference 2016

Mrs. Young and I were so excited to attend the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston last week.  We missed Forest North a lot, but we came back energized with lots of new ideas about how to make the library even better for our students and staff!

I participated in a session called "Speed Dating the Bluebonnet Books."  Librarians pay to come to this session to raise money for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and they get to rotate around about 20 tables, meeting authors or Texas Bluebonnet committee members to get background and programming ideas about the books.  They also get many of next year's books for free and can get them signed by the authors.  As an outgoing committee member, I showed up to help, but Doreen Cronin was unable to attend because of the terrible weather affecting Houston.  Suddenly, Doreen's publisher, Michelle, and I were in charge of presenting Ms. Cronin's book Chicken Squad, to all of the rotating librarians!  We came up with a short presentation and had a blast presenting it to tons of librarians!

Ursula Vernon, author of Hamster Princess

Cassie Beasley, author of Circus Mirandus

Josh Lieb, author of Ratscalibur

Joel Ross, author of Fog Diver