Downtown Fort Myers came to life yesterday at the Reading Festival! There were thousands of visitors, and the Badilly family got to speak to hundreds of children and their parents and grandparents and sell books. There were authors, illustrators, entertainers, crafts, food and more. And the event was held along the beautiful waterfront downtown. We had a great time! Every city in America, big or small, should have a reading festival every year!
Check out the photos from the event.
A gorgeous day & great event along the waterfront in downtown Ft. Myers.
Setting up our booth
Our booth attracted a lot of local teachers
Grandpa Willy and Lilly
The Lee County state-of-the-art BookMobile – Incredible!
Inside the BookMobile 4,000 titles, including Lilly Badilly!
Susan Roseberry, librarian extraordinaire!
Our new friend and next door exhibitor, Shari Rodgers from Barefoot Books
Today was truly a remarkable and most memorable day. Just watching that vast sea of optimistic people united for the same purpose on the Mall in DC was overwhelming. It does not matter whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, African American, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, male, female, young or old, straight or gay, struggling financial, middle class or affluent, you have a new President. You have new hope for a better tomorrow.
Today is an inauguration for new leadership and for a fresh start for every one of us. I am proud that we have elected our first African American President. But the future of our great country should not be about color or gender or heritage. It should be about competence, honesty, compassion and the vision to restore the American Dream.
If you have never read the Constitution of the USA, get to it! Read all the amendments too. The brilliance of our founding fathers from 2 centuries ago will restore complete faith in our system and remind you what true freedom means. It is what America is all about. As soon as your children are old enough to understand the basic principals, encourage them to read it as well.
Today our children saw that a man (who was once a student like they are, who did not come from a privileged background, who against all odds did something extraordinary) realize his dream. He accomplished this with pure persistence, hard work and determination and the intelligence and charm to rally the support of billions of people around the globe.
Isn’t that a lesson for us all?
We had a fact-packed, fun day at Grassy Waters Elementary today in West Palm Beach. What a beautiful new school that is! The library looks like a Barnes and Noble Bookstore. Media Specialist Alina Orenstein does a fantastic job with the displays to make sure all the kids are drawn to some excellent books.
I was impressed by the media equipment and morning communications, prepared by students. Also, there is a morning stretch and short exercise segment for the entire school. Way to go! Kids need to exercise, and this sends a most important message.
As usual, the kids were adorable. They thought my costume was really funny and my voices were silly. We had a lot of audience participation. Everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. Thank you Ms. Orenstein and to everyone else at Grassy Waters Elementary, and have fun with your Book Fair this week! I know you will all find lots of great books to read.
I had a nice surprise when I arrived at the school only to find that my daughter’s favorite 6th grade teacher, Ms. Woods, was working there. She is an awesome teacher, and Grassy Waters is very lucky to have her!
Photos of the program and shot with Principal Wilkinson.
Libraries are often overlooked and underutilized, and librarians are often unappreciated. Do you take your kids to the library on a regular basis? There is so much to offer! From huge cities to small town libraries, you’ll find fantastic programs. Here are some of the MANY programs I’ve discovered:
- Bedtime stories for toddlers
- Traveling book mobiles
- Pet Reading Projects – Kids practicing reading out loud to a specially trained dog
- Self Improvement Seminars
- Art Projects
- Book Clubs
- Contests
- Birthday Parties for Books
- Mystery events (Nancy Drew and others)
- Book Club Meetings
- Author Visits
- Tea Parties for Girls
- Teen Volunteer programs (restocking shelves and helping kids find books)
- Teen knitting for the needy
- Comic Book conferences
- Genealogy Programs
- Ghost Story Time
- Writing Workshops
- Baby Sitting Training
- Reading Festivals
- Book Reviews
- Homework Assistance
- Yo Yo Workshop
- Used Book Sale
- Concerts/Sing Alongs
- Chess Tournaments
- Monopoly Tournaments
- Home School Programs
- Guided Internet Sessions
- Puppet Making
- Costume Design
- Art Shows
- Readathons
So take advantage of your local library. It is undoubtedly one of the best uses of our tax dollars! The programs, books and media materials are free, and the benefits are endless. Just remember, there are kids all over the US who could never afford to buy a book and would not have access if it weren’t for their school or public library.
Also, please remember to thank your librarian. They are dedicated to helping educate you and your family. I have learned that the amount of work they do to process new titles, manage the staff, meet the needs of the patrons and keep their libraries up to date is extraordinary!
- photo 1 – Lobby of BEA
- photo 2 – Lilly on shelf a New Title Showcase
- photo 3 – Me posing in front of Lilly
- photo 4 – Lilly and Grandma Nellie in costume
- photo 5 – Me with my high school friend and publisher of Triumph books (sports titles), Mitch Rogatz
- photo 6 – Me with my attorney friend, Dave Ossentjuk, who used to work with me in Denver and now lives in LA
This was our first ever Book Expo America! As you can see, Lilly and Grandma Nellie went to the weekend event to meet and greet book lovers of all sorts. It was a very exciting and exhausting experience! Here’s what we learned:
- There are 800 books published every day of the year, and the sheer number of children’s books we saw was shocking!
- Not everyone is friendly at BEA. Some of the exhibitors are clearly not interested in talking to self publishers and frankly were lacking in sense of humor. But we did not let that stop us from pressing on!
- The positioning of The Travel Adventures of Lilly P Badilly: Costa Rica in the New Title Showcase made the book difficult to find amongst the countless titles at the event.
- There is large number of what I must call “vultures” who come to BEA only to get free bags and fill them up with free books and giveaways. They drag these huge loads behind them while racing through the showroom floors grabbing any and everything they can get for FREE.
- Blogging is phenomenal! We sat in on a seminar with a panel of 3 well known bloggers who each attract over 1 million visitors per month! These 3 authors had fabulous senses of humor, and we learned a lot from them. The written word can be so powerful!
- Librarians want to know about new titles. We attended 2 seminars with Librarian panels, and we were smiling each time. They explained that they welcome self published books, but they need to be available from Baker and Taylor, they need to have been reviewed, they must be of high quality construction, they love audio books, new children’s titles are always sought after and most importantly, librarians have a great sense of humor! And we all know lilly P Badilly readers need to have a great sense of humor!
- Wearing ridiculous looking costumes was a HUGE hit at BEA! From the moment we put our costumes on in the bathroom, we got a lot of positive attention. We were asked repeatedly who we were and what our book was about! We got smiled at, laughed at and pitied!
- There are a lot of other independent presses experiencing the same challenges as Smart Poodle Publishing! We met a lot of friendly folks who are also putting all their efforts into making their books a success.
- Ebooks and other internet works are on the rise. Reference books are becoming less and less popular because online content can be updated so much easier.
- Selling books is a competitive business! But it can be done with great success.
