Celebrating new friends and new books

Celebrate This Week was established by Ruth Ayres

Today I am celebrating the kindness and enthusiasm of my new friend Victor whom I met at ALA Midwinter in Chicago back in February. The first booth I stopped at the in exhibit hall was Simon & Schuster and Victor was the first publisher rep I talked to. He was so enthusiastic about the S&S YA books that I couldn't wait to come back and share them with my students. We got to talking and Victor asked where I was from. When I told him I lived near Ann Arbor, he then said, "I live in Ann Arbor!" I was definitely not expecting to hear him say that since I assumed if you worked for one of the big publishers you had to live in New York.

Once I realized that I had an enthusiastic booktalker right in my own backyard, I asked if he'd be willing to come to my classroom and talk to my students about publishing and share some of his favorite upcoming books from Simon & Schuster. He graciously agreed and visited my classroom on Friday.

I'm always grateful to others who are willing to share their love of writing and reading with my students because I'm sure they get tired of listening to me yammer on all the time. I can't tell you how delighted I am to see so many kids who haven't wanted to read all year suddenly fighting over books So thank you Victor for helping to bring some excitement and variety to our day!