The Joys of Attending A Professional Day

On Wednesday, I was lucky enough to be able to go to a CAIS sponsored professional day at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California. As some of you know, as a librarian, it is part of our job to read as many of the books coming out as possible in order to help up build collections, connect with our students and other things. It is impossible to read everything coming out, though there are people out there who do have this talent, I am not one of them. One of the best ways to learn about books is to attend a book talk. So, when the opportunity comes to attend one of these events, I like to take it.

We had two speakers, Nicole White, from Penguin Books, and Amanda, from Vroman's. A couple of books that I requested ordered from Penguin is Alison Goodman's Eon: Dragoneye Reborn and Gale Forman's If I Stay. Goodman's book is a fantasy that takes place in Japan. It was recommended by Amanda and another person from Vroman's while we were there so I definitely had to pick that up. Forman's book sounds similar to Anne Sebold's Lovely Bones, which I loved. Amanda had a great list of books as well the main stand out is Kristin Cashore's Graceling, another fantasy book. Also, I ordered Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles. Amanda raved about this and she's re-read it 3 times so that was enough to make me want to order it.

Aside from learning about all these books, not just YA also childrens, we were treated to lunch at El Portal which is right across the street from Vroman's.





It was really delicious. I had the tilapia entree and flan for dessert. It was so good. I will have to go there for dinner some time.

Afterwards, we were supposed to go to the Huntington Library but I was not feeling so great so I headed home. Overall, it was a great day and I met some of the other librarians who work at independent schools.