Fall in Providence Rhode Island
Marie-Louise Gay reading at the Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors
Handmade poster above my signing table
In October, I attended the wonderful Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books and Authors in beautiful Providence, RI. It is a one-day event at the Lincoln School and attracts hundreds of children, parents, school librarians and book-lovers. The festival is a fantastic community event that also entices well-known authors and illustrators from all over the United States to present their stories and/or illustrations. As the only Canadian author, I understood why all these authors came: we were met with a warm welcome, and interest, curiosity and enthusiasm.
I was presenting Caramba and Henry and my new book, Stella! A Treasury, and met with many fans of my books. It’s always exciting to present a new book and in the case of Stella! A Treasury I was thrilled to see how people reacted to a book that contains all the Stella stories...
They seemed as thrilled as I was as a child when discovering anthologies of all the books of my favorite authors, for example the Babar series by Jean de Brunhoff. I would lie in bed or snuggle in my favorite armchair and pour over every word and detail of the illustrations. It was like a book that never ended! It was as if the characters lived in my house, became my friends and read me their stories over and over again.
The festival day ended with a lovely supper hosted by Chris Van Allsburg and his wife, Lisa. I've always been such a fan of his work so I was thrilled to meet the author of The Garden of Abdul Gazasi, a book that I read many, many times and which was a source of inspiration at the beginning of my career. I also met Pam Muñoz Ryan, author of the enchanting The Dreamer, Harry Bliss and many others.