Anderson's Kid Lit Breakfast

For the first time, I attended Anderson's Kid Lit Breakfast, and I was not disappointed! It was a fantastic morning with co-workers and friends, along with some awesome authors! In January, I shared my plan to attend with other staff members at my school in Olney, Illinois. I wasn't sure if anyone would join me on the four-hour trip, but I thought it was worth a try! To my surprise, not only did four other staff members decide to join me, but our one of our principals decided to provide funds for the breakfast and the hotel!

During the week before the event, we had an entire week of snow days. The good news for Friday was that we decided to leave at noon on our venture north; the bad news was that more snow, and ice this time, was coming. We were very fortunate that we missed the 2 inches of sleet that came in our home town after we left, and was mostly cleared before we returned.

Since we arrived early, we first traveled to Naperville, to visit Anderson's Bookshop. This was only my third time to visit the store, and it was the first time for my companions, so we spent quite a while looking at books and making our purchases. I had never been there at night. How lovely it looked with the lights glowing! Unfortunately, it was very cold, so we headed to our hotel to check in and get some supper! The five of us had a wonderful evening visiting, laughing, and attempting to solve all of our school's problems!

We arrived early at Anderson's so we could get in line for a good seat. I was so excited to see the chairs that were created by two of the guest illustrators, Dav Pilkey and Bob Shea. I was bound and determined that I was going to win the Bob Shea chair, and one of my friends was planning to take home the Dav Pilkey chair. Below is a picture of the chair, that I unfortunately did not win. I am not sure if it made it better that someone at my table did win it, but she was very excited. While I was disappointed not to win the chair, I did catch an enormous pair of underwear autographed by none other than Dav Pilkey. They are also shown below. I will have to say that the students at my school might be more fired up over those underwear than they would have been over the chair, but I couldn't be sure!

The food at the Kid Lit Breakfast was delicious, and the speakers were outstanding. I loved hearing Dav Pilkey's stories of himself as a young student!  This was a great experience, and I enjoyed sharing it with some of the teachers from our school.  By the next week I was hearing comments starting with "Next year" and "When we go back", which makes me think it will become a tradition!