My husband took my son, Keegan, to the Decatur Book Festival early Saturday. They missed the Cat in the Hat parade, but they did catch a reading by Chris Raschka of Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, which is a book meant to give children a sense of Jazz. My son (20 months old) now struts around the house saying Be Bop! Be. Bop! BeBop. Raschka won the Caldecott Medal in 2006 for The Hello, Goodbye Window (written by Norton Juster). Raschka’s book Yo! Yes? was a 1994 Caldecott Medal Honor Book. I’m a big fan of Yo! Yes? It’s a story about friendship in only 34 words.
All three of us went back to the festival that evening. We stopped by the Five Points booth and wandered around the book market. Unfortunately, we were there between music performances. We hung out at Little Shop of Stories, which is a welcoming kids’ bookstore and a Jake’s Ice Cream store in one. We had to pry Keegan away from a large Elmo doll. He’s never seen Sesame Street, but he has played Elmo rhyming and alphabet games on the computer. And that was enough. He knew who Elmo was, wanted Elmo terribly. So the Elmo phenomenon begins. I thought we’d avoid it somehow because we don’t have cable. We also shared some $5 vegeterian corn dogs. $5! I didn’t plan ahead to attend any panels or readings, and we were sort of just relaxing this weekend, so I didn’t take full advantage of what Decatur had to offer…But, I do plan on planning ahead and being more involved in the 2007 AWP conference, which is to be here in the great Hotlanta.
ETA: I also picked up a copy of Verb: two and a half hours of original ficiton, poetry, and music on 2 cds.
Amber Nicole Brooks 
Cool! You saw Chris Raschka! I’m not a huge fan of The Hello, Goodbye Window but I’ve enjoyed his other works. Waffle is a cute one, too – but I think adults like it more than kids. My absolute favorite picture book author & illustrator right now is Mo Willems. If you haven’t introduced him to Keegan, you have to! His Pigeon series (starting with Don’t Let Pigeon Drive the Bus), Leonardo the Terrible Monster, and Knuffle Bunny are all huge hits at storytime. Very, very funny stuff.