Quick Thoughts From DC

So after a day full of learning and a delicious dinner, I had time to process my weekend a bit. Since you heard from Karen already, I thought I'd fill you in on my quick impressions of the weekend.

The Library of Congress is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen and standing in the middle of Thomas Jefferson's books that started it all was an incredible experience for this history and book nut.

Seeing the history of illustrated books in the rare books department beginning with a book from the 1490s was amazing.

MotherReader puts on a great conference!

I got to put a face to Jen at Jen Robinson and Tricia at Miss Rumphius, two blogs that inspired me to jump into this Kidlitosphere.

I had lunch with Laurel Snyder who wrote Any Which Wall, a very cool time travel book that I read and loved. I also got to see her picture book Inside the Slidy Diner which will be very fun in THE PIT.

Also at the lunch table was Sara Lewis Holmes, author of Letters From Rapunzel and her new book Operation Yes which I haven't been able to get from my local library but will keep trying, I hear nothing but good about it.

After watching over the shoulders of Mary Lee and Karen as people in the conference room tweeted on their Twitters about what was going on, I realized that I may need to involved in the conversation too, watch for me on Twitter soon.

I joined a very fun bunch of people for dinner including Mary Lee of A Year of Reading, my partner Karen and Lara Ivey and Julie Dauksys who have started a new reading consulting business called Grow Up With Books, they even had matching shirts! NO KAREN!

I met and talked with Joan Holub of the book Knuckleheads and picked up a galley of her new book Groundhog Weather School, a fun look at Groundhog's Day, weather, sun and shadows and many other science topics.

Now I look forward to the 7 hour drive home and the discussion Karen and I will have about the conference, Cybils, plans for Literate Lives and so much more.