TLA-mazing

TLA was an absolute blast. I saw a lot of familiar Texan librarian faces and a lot of familiar author faces. And of course - I met a ton of great new friends as well.

The break out session with the librarians of Round Rock & Abilene was a rousing success. We had a full house! (That's not an easy thing to do at these conferences, there is a lot going on!) Much should be attributed to these crazy ladies who welcomed people as they walked in.

A big thanks to my peeps of Abilene and Round Rock for having me on board!

Here are some of the other people that I got to hang out with:



Here I am with Eric Carle. You may know him from a little book called The Hungry Caterpillar. Wait a minute...that's not E-Carle. WHAT?! Oh - that's Tomie dePaola. I was wondering why he kept talking about Strega Nona...


That's me on the right and Matt Holm on the left. Matt is the illustrator of the most awesome Baby Mouse series.


This is how Libba Bray and I roll.


Adam Rex and I take our giant cats very seriously.

But not always.


Kevin Henkes is as awesome as you would think. This was my first time meeting Mr. Henkes, and I can't wait to run into him again. That is assuming his restraining order doesn't go through...


Matt and I are going to retire from illustrating and start our own cruise ship for librarians where we entertain as lounge singers. Who's in?



Heather Jankowski is a world class librarian. She won't tell you this, but look at the airplane scene in Punk Farm on Tour and tell me if you recognize anyone wearing a "Hancok Hawk" T-shirt.



Here I am with Thelma and Louise...



My signing at TLA was unlike anything I have ever experienced. The conference officials had to shut down my line at the Random House booth and move it to the "Author's Corral". It was all so very U2 rooftop concert, cops trying to hold us down kind of thing.







A big THANK YOU again to y'all who came out to support me and I hope to see you at TLA again one of these years!