Book fair

After two brutal days without air conditioning, forgive us if we're patting ourselves on the back now that we didn't let more heat ruin our plan this morning.

After Levynn's ballet class at the YMCA, we drove downtown, parked in the Tribune lot and rode the bus to the newspaper-run Printers Row Book Fair. It's billed as the largest event of its kind in the Midwest. Held outside, right in the middle of several streets, it included 150 exhibitors (mostly small publishing companies and bookstores), author talks and signings, and a Kids Corner with musical performances and activities.

Guess where we started? In Kids Corner, of course, and we heard a little of Justin Roberts and The Not Ready for Naptime Players (pictured below).


We stopped at a few booths, primarily to satisfy Dad's curiousity, and then stopped along the route to eat lunch curbside at the fancy-schmancy Custom House.

The main library was barely a block from the restaurant, and we walked over there after lunch to cool down and rest. S.E. Hinton (pictured below, roughly), who wrote such famous young-adult novels as The Outsiders and Tex, was signing books in the lobby after receiving the Young Adult Book Prize.


In the children's department, we ran into one of Dad's old college friends, her husband (who was her boyfriend way back then) and their two kids - a 20-month-old boy and a three-year-old girl. They live on the South Side and were in the library for the same reason we were there, which was a wild coincidence.

We decided to head home after that, which meant that we'd leave without any new books - but maybe not without any new friends.