2007 National Book Festival

Hooray! Our cynsational Cynthia Leitich Smith will be appearing at the 2007 National Book Festival!

Mercer Mayer will be designing the poster. Now that I know the wheres and hows of Washington, this would be so much fun!

"I cannot live without books." -- Thomas Jefferson

I visited the Library of Congress when we were in Washington, DC. What a thrill. "Just think, I've downloaded your records for years and now here I am."

NOTHING prepared me for the beauty of that space. I was stunned and stupefied at the color, themes and unyielding marble surfaces. (I think my feet and legs suffered more from that visit than any other trek on our visit.)

Book shopping in DC
The entling ran out of reading material early on so we visited the very nice B. Dalton in Union Station when we passed through to get her a quick reading refill.

Whenever there was a lull in the action, "OMG, I cannot take another step!" (My level of physical fitness makes a couch potato look like an Olympic athlete) the entling would happily whip out her book while I recovered.


The estimable Sprite Writes also alerted us to Politics and Prose. We rode the bus to the shop and spent a wonderful hour-plus, roaming the store. The children's books are downstairs. The lovely lady helping folks absolutely knew her stuff. I should have found out her name. While I was there, a mother and daughter, with a basket, were buying summer reading. Don't you just love to see parents just piling up the volumes to purchase? The girl was a going to be in 5th grade next year. I am afraid I spent some time saying, "Oooh, have you read THIS?" They added several of my enthusiasms to their pile, including Maude March. I cannot seem to stop telling people about Maude.

One of the most entertaining places to find books was The Spy Museum. This family spent over three hours there. The museum is a brilliant mix of video, audio, artifacts and storytelling. The crowd was so dense at first that I was afraid I was going to hate it but eventually people rushed on and left us to meander through the exhibits.

The gift shop is as entertaining as the museum itself and had one of the best selections of children's books I had seen on our trip. Of course they all had to do with spies or spying. There was Alex Rider, Jimmy Coates, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Young James Bond, Harriet the Spy, and Christopher Paul Curtis's Mr. Chickee. There were even more that I cannot recall now but I was amazed at the imagination and knowledge of the buyer. The book choices were spot on for the theme.

Stamp it up!

Years ago, I purchased a National Parks "Passport" on a family vacation to one of our nation's splendid national parks. I vowed to always have it at hand, just in case I stumbled over a national monument or memorial. I then promptly forgot it on the trip we took to Yellowstone a few years later so I bought another one.

Hoorah! I actually remembered to pack both of them for the DC trip and it became one of my goals for the week to locate the official stamp at the monuments and memorials we visited and ink the passports with the date of our visit .

I will say that this activity is more interesting to me than my children who still chide me about my detour to the location of the Golden Spike ceremony just so I could get my passport stamped. Hey, we were in "the neighborhood" and what were the chances we would ever be this close again? Imagine them joining those two railroads out there in the middle of NOWHERE. Amazing.

I don't remember exactly how many miles away from the interstate it was or how long it took to get there. I do remember it looked closer on the map and that is all I have to say.

By the way, the stamps for the Lincoln Memorial, The Mall, The Vietnam War Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial are ALL in the bookstore at the Lincoln Memorial which is, imperceptibly, squirreled away in the far corner of the statue level, NOT down in the exhibit area. Believe me, I just saved you forty-five minutes of hunting for it.

This also gives one the excuse to enter ALL the visitor centers/gift stores on the pretense of looking for the stamp. What an amazing selection of history books, cds, dvds. Most of them had a nice selection of children's books that related to the person or subject too.

48 Hour Book Challenge

Mother Reader's 24 Hour Book Challenge is coming up soon. I had started a nice little pile of books that I wanted to devote myself to for that weekend. Well, best laid plans and all that.

Turns out we will be a'voyaging to Washington D.C. the week before and we will be flying home on the 9th. So, my challenge will be to read on the plane and while doing laundry when we get home. Maybe I will receive honorable mention for the most number of pages read at the highest altitude?

We are all very dizzy with excitement. I have only been to Washington D.C. once and that was as a chaperone on a high school band trip in April 2001. The youngest entling has never been there so we are having great fun reading guide books and making our lists.



The Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress and Ford's Theater top my list. Ever since I read James Swanson's riveting page-turner, Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer last year I have been anxious to see the theater where the drama began.

Update: Blast and drat! I just visted the Ford's Theater site and saw this:

Please note: Ford's Theatre Historic Site will be closed to the public through November 2007. There will be no performances or tours during this time. We will reopen in November 2007 for our production of Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol. Please check back for updates throughout the summer.