The ALA Recap Post

I managed to go to all four days of exhibits at ALA's Midwinter Meeting and have so much to say about the experience. It's the first book conference I've been to and I'm absolutely thrilled that I was able to attend. Tons of greatness happened, unfortunately someone (me) forgot her camera every. single. day. and alas there are no pictures. But here are the highlights. ELEVEN OF THEM, in whatever order I think of them in.

1. On Friday I got to hang out with the fabulous Cindy Pon, who is incredibly incredibly sweet and awesome. I also met a few other awesome book people, including Robin, who I talked about books like Columbine and Nineteen Minutes with. (YAY for book conversations!) (Also, she has tons of pictures up on her blog!)
2. Also on Friday was the YA Book Blogger Meetup where I met so many bloggers and librarians. I had a great time talking with and meeting so many people and fangirling over Betsy-Tacy books with other book lovers. Authors, publicists, librarians, bloggers.
3. I now have a Betsy-Tacy tote bag. YEAH.
4. My badge said Ten Cent Notes on it, which made me feel really awesome and legit.
5. TROLLEY RIDING ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY. It took forever to get there and back but was pretty fun. I enjoy the trolley.
6. I talked to such excellent and interesting people at Flux, Hyperion, Harper, Scholastic, Little Brown, Random House, Penguin, Macmillan, and Egmont. It was like a book geek's special brand of heaven. These conversations included: upcoming themes/trends in contemporary YA, the reissue of the Baby-Sitters' Club series, Across the Universe, Sarah Dessen, Hunger Games, book covers, Lynne Rae Perkins, etc etc etc. 
7. Tons of shiny pretty wonderful ARCs! Including one that was pushed into my hands by someone at the Macmillan group -- a YA scifi without a cover or pub date listed but OMG YOU GUYS. I'm more than kind of in love with it.
8. On Sunday I got to hang out with Khy, of Frenetic Reader! I always love getting to talk to and hang out with her. Such fun is had! 
9. I also met the lovely Amy of My Friend Amy, who I've talked to on Twitter more times than I can count. She's so nice! Just as nice as you'd suspect her of being!
10. At one point Khy said, "That's John Green's editor!" And I didn't see her but I really, really wanted to follow her and meet her. I didn't though.
11. Probably the highlight of the entire thing? I ran into and talked to a librarian who is on next year's Newbery Committee. OMG OMG OMG. I pretty much geeked out over that one. I love the Newbery Award. It's. Amazing.

So the whole thing was incredibly awesome.

I met all kinds of awesome people, got awesome books that I'm excited to read, and overall just had a fantastic time.