Tomie
I had the good fortune about 30 years ago to attend a conference on Children's Literature that the Michigan Library Association sponsored. It happened to be in Kalamazoo where I was living at the time. The meeting was for three days at Nazareth College which was also the motherhouse for the Sisters of St. Joseph. The sisters had turned a good part of the school into an adult education/conference center because college enrollment was down, but the sisters had to support themselves. Anyhow, the rest of the week, following the conference, was the annual state-wide Children's Services Roundtable.
The first days of the conference were interesting because we got to meet and talk to real authors. I'd met the occasional author at ALA, but I'd never really gotten the chance to talk to anyone in depth. It was fun and exciting. On Wednesday, the final day of the Children's Lit conference, there was to be a reception for the authors that spoke at the conference and the ones that were to participate in the Roundtable meeting. Tomie dePaola came in for the latter part of the week.
Mary Rife, who was the head of children's services at Kalamazoo Public Library was Tomie's escort. Mary was older than most of us who were in the beginning stages of our careers. She was very knowledgeable in the area of children's literature. She knew many authors including Maurice Sendak and Ed Emberly. Mary had to do something and deposited Tomie with me after a hasty introduction. It was the cocktail hour with spiked punch and WCTU punch. It was the usual - did you have a good trip, is your room nice sort of talk. Behind us were a number of my friends. They were talking and someone said something that was totally ridiculous. I turned around and said, "That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard."
Well, that broke the ice with Tomie. He has a laugh that starts around his toes and just sort of wells up out of his body. We all laughed and just started talking about things in general. Mary came back to claim Tomie and we were all ushered into dinner. You can imagine my surprise when Tomie and Mary sat down next to me at my table for dinner. We just talked all through dinner and afterward. During the rest of the conference Tomie and I usually ate together and the second night a number of us went to one of the local watering holes to drink and talk. Tomie told me about Strega Nona - he even drew a picture of her on a napkin that I later had framed. Tomie signed it at another time, too!
One of the stories Tomie always tells people is how I sneaked him back to the convent at 2:30 in the morning. It wasn't actually covert, but he did have to get into the conference center via the nightwatchman at the convent door. It makes for a good story to tell.
Tomie is one of the greatest people I've ever met and I'm proud to be able to call him a friend. He even put me in one of his books, or so he told me. Check out "The Knight and the Dragon." I'm the librarian! Through him I got to meet a great many people in the publishing game at several different publishing houses. I also was on his "A" list and received a great number of invites to publisher's parties. When he found out I was coming to one of the Chicago ALA's after I went into administration, he arranged - I'm sure insisted - that I be invited to one of the dinner's Prentice Hall was giving in his honor.
Tomorrow is September 15th - it's Tomie's 70th birthday. When we met he had a thick thatch of dark brown hair and mine was golden blonde. Well, there's silver threads among the gold ones now and Tomie's hair is still thick, but very white. I was 24 when we met and he was 40. It seems a long time ago, but is still one of my fondest memories.
Happy Birthday, Tomie!!!!!
The first days of the conference were interesting because we got to meet and talk to real authors. I'd met the occasional author at ALA, but I'd never really gotten the chance to talk to anyone in depth. It was fun and exciting. On Wednesday, the final day of the Children's Lit conference, there was to be a reception for the authors that spoke at the conference and the ones that were to participate in the Roundtable meeting. Tomie dePaola came in for the latter part of the week.
Mary Rife, who was the head of children's services at Kalamazoo Public Library was Tomie's escort. Mary was older than most of us who were in the beginning stages of our careers. She was very knowledgeable in the area of children's literature. She knew many authors including Maurice Sendak and Ed Emberly. Mary had to do something and deposited Tomie with me after a hasty introduction. It was the cocktail hour with spiked punch and WCTU punch. It was the usual - did you have a good trip, is your room nice sort of talk. Behind us were a number of my friends. They were talking and someone said something that was totally ridiculous. I turned around and said, "That's the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever heard."
Well, that broke the ice with Tomie. He has a laugh that starts around his toes and just sort of wells up out of his body. We all laughed and just started talking about things in general. Mary came back to claim Tomie and we were all ushered into dinner. You can imagine my surprise when Tomie and Mary sat down next to me at my table for dinner. We just talked all through dinner and afterward. During the rest of the conference Tomie and I usually ate together and the second night a number of us went to one of the local watering holes to drink and talk. Tomie told me about Strega Nona - he even drew a picture of her on a napkin that I later had framed. Tomie signed it at another time, too!
One of the stories Tomie always tells people is how I sneaked him back to the convent at 2:30 in the morning. It wasn't actually covert, but he did have to get into the conference center via the nightwatchman at the convent door. It makes for a good story to tell.
Tomie is one of the greatest people I've ever met and I'm proud to be able to call him a friend. He even put me in one of his books, or so he told me. Check out "The Knight and the Dragon." I'm the librarian! Through him I got to meet a great many people in the publishing game at several different publishing houses. I also was on his "A" list and received a great number of invites to publisher's parties. When he found out I was coming to one of the Chicago ALA's after I went into administration, he arranged - I'm sure insisted - that I be invited to one of the dinner's Prentice Hall was giving in his honor.
Tomorrow is September 15th - it's Tomie's 70th birthday. When we met he had a thick thatch of dark brown hair and mine was golden blonde. Well, there's silver threads among the gold ones now and Tomie's hair is still thick, but very white. I was 24 when we met and he was 40. It seems a long time ago, but is still one of my fondest memories.
Happy Birthday, Tomie!!!!!
posted by AngelsPixie @ 5:07 PM
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