The week or two before the school year begins is a weird one. I try to tie up loose ends from the summer. I start thinking about what I want out of the upcoming school year. But there’s also work that goes into a full-day book presentation my co-presenter Stacey and I do through our local BOCES’ for mostly librarians and a handful of educators.
We met a few times throughout the summer to plan for this and upcoming opportunities around the state to spotlight new books. This past year it morphed from a half day with each of us as the primary speaker to a full day where we are both the primary presenters all day giving a full picture of what’s out for PreK through 12th graders in the book world. This organic merging of our voices came through feedback and constant reflection. With this new journey we wanted to merge our different personalities and styles into a cohesive presentation that focuses on our collective love of literature.
Thinking about yesterday after a quick debrief at the end of the day, reviewing evaluations the participants submitted, and talking on the phone this morning, I’m grateful to do this work with her. We still can’t remember how this came to be that two women from different school districts (hers more small and rural, mine large and urban), from different backgrounds (she’s a career changer librarian and I have been a librarian almost all of my career), with different lifestyles (she’s always on the go and I’m a homebody), and varied approaches (she likes to leap and talk to strangers with pink and blue in her hair and I’m an orderly, organized dress-wearer who makes polite conversation with the same brown hair I was born with) are bonded in this way. We often joke that we are like Matthew Cordell’s Cornbread and Poppy.
I would never and could never do this with any other person. And yesterday was that reminder.
Stacey is energetic. Stacey is personable. Stacey is caring. Stacey has gone to school only to discover that her leggings matched a pair that a second grader had on that day and another day discovered she had the same backpack as another student. Stacey throws the best book birthdays and is a friend to many authors. Stacey is the cohost of Author Fan Face Off with Steve Sheinkin.
Isn’t she lovely?
