I decided to head to ALA 2013 because it was in Chicago! Of course I live in Illinois and I took the train downtown. I attended ALA 2013 on Saturday and Sunday just for the exhibits only. I hopped the train as it stopped at every stop. Then of course my brother lives downtown so he picked me up and went to his place for some breakfast. It was fun. After we ate, he dropped me off at McCormick Plaza which is not far from his place at all. I did have a list this time to be prepared. Sadly I did miss a few books I wanted but got that made up later from walking around. I saw many lovely publishers such as Penguin, Little Brow, Flux, Hyperion (Disney), Sourcebooks, Macmillan, Spencer Hill Press, Zondervan, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Bloomsbury, and so on. The place was huge. Of course there were artists and business companies for the library field was so neat to see! I loved seeing the shelving units and tables and chairs and even book drops were there. There were business companies such as 3M, Family Research, Baker & Taylor and so on.
After getting some books here and there and meeting with some people from the publishing company, I had to get lunch. The food was pricey! I spent 20 bucks on lunch there..the sandwich alone was $17.00. The joys of going into the city! After I ate, I headed back out. It does help to have a list. The one thing that was different was that ALA had their numbers on the floor, where BEA had their numbers up on top. Plus I didn't see a map in the ALA handbook that they gave us. So I basically went around in circles quite a bit! Oh my feet were fine but my shoulders ached so from carrying those books. It's quite a work, good for the soul! I saw so many different people there and met some great librarians! It was packed.
I also learned that 'Teardrop' by Lauren Kate would be handed out on Sunday morning so that was a new thing to add to my list! Plus I got an extra copy of 'Teardrop' for another book blogger named @heatherkkilpatri who did not know if she could go or not. I believe you can go. I saw children there which made me smile! Then I saw a tweet from another book blogger named @Sash_and_Em who had to leave early and wanted to get Shannon Messenger book signing as I did get a copy for her. I just like to help others out. Plus I also got some books for my two teacher friends as well. I came back with tons of books!
I did get to meet Colleen Gleason who I have been a fan of since 2007! There's another blog posting about that. Then I also met Shannon Delaney where I got a copy of Weather Witch, then some other authors I met were Julie Berry, Simone Elkeles, S.J. Adams, Geoff Herbach, Amanda Sun, C.Y. Lyons, Marissa Moss, and a few others. It was exciting and fun.
One thing I did get to have was dinner with my brother and his girlfriend at Hugo Frog Bar which was amazing. If you like seafood, then you need to go to this place! It was amazing!!! We shared an appetizer of Mussels! I had a bowl of clam chowder soup and then some shrimp for dinner. I was full afterwards. We did eat outside and it felt great. There was a heater outside too. It was fun to watch people go by. Later that night we headed back to my brother's place since I was crashing the night there (nice brother to help his older sister out)! We watched the movie 'Gangster Squad' - it was a good movie but a little violent. I did sleep pretty damn well since the train does go by his place.
Sunday came and my poor shoulders were already sore from Saturday. Sunday I ended up with more books. Holy cow! At the end, I went to Flux publishers to see what they had and the one lady there was so nice, she gave me a copy of this one book that I wanted to read since I would not be there on Monday. Thank you soooo much to Flux Publishing!!
Now I have all these books to read...I'm pretty much set for a while! Heading home..I had to walk from State Street to Michigan Ave to get a taxi cab to get to the train station to get home! I barely made it. Once I got on the train, it was packed. There was no place to sit! I ended up standing the entire time until about the 3 or 4 stop before I got off the train. The Metra train runs every two hours on Sunday. My kids were happy to see me when I arrived and so was my husband! I have the best family. A wonderful husband who lets me geek out at books.
If you are thinking of going to ALA, do it! It's worth the fun. Just like BEA..it's fun. A great way to see the whole world of books and people! I believe 2014 ALA is in Las Vegas and BEA 2014 is in NYC again. If you got any questions for me, ask away. :)
Photos below to check out:
Chicago ALA 2013
The whole set of books I got! Plus others that I didn't post since I couldn't get them all home..
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