I worked an awfully long time to get here, so please bear with me while I revel a bit. (This is my blog, after all. Right?)
First, the District A street festival on a beautiful sunny day let me meet readers like this one, who took her mom's instructions to read the book and decide whether to buy it seriously. She wore my pink monkey hat to do it:
And it was even better that she decided it would be a good book for a young friend. For part of the day there was a steady stream of kids stopping by.
I had the chance to try out my "find the invisible monkey" activity, which was a big success. I love that most kids just accepted my explanation that the monkeys showed up when they colored the boxes because they had a good imagination. (Never mind my special color-changing markers.)
I even got into the spirit:
Then a week later there was Books by the Banks, where I got to meet fellow children's book creators like Scotti Cohn, Heather Henson and Christina Wald. They were all friendly and generous and -- much to my surprise -- didn't question my right to be among their ranks. At the reception, I even got to wear a badge that said, "Linda Sanders-Wells, author."
It was a rush to be part of a big crowd of people who love books. (Sorry about the photo quality.)
The best parts of all were when a mom who had read the book started describing the plot to her friend and got choked up when she tried to describe how Jack ends up coming to his sister's defense and when a girl who was given the choice of all the books in the room to take home chose Maggie's Monkeys.
I am thrilled to have the chance to do this. And humbled. Today I am one happy writer.