Living in Boise

I will blog about our Jan Brett book signing when I get the pictures downloaded and time to write about it. First I wanted to share what happened at the book signing.

First, after Jan Brett spoke I took the Lambs to go check out books from the library. I was surprised that the auditorium went directly into the library and there was no security to go through first. Can you tell I worked at a big city library? There were many librarians ready to help. I had never checked out books at this main library so we had lots of questions where items were located. They were very helpful and prepared for lots of patrons during this event.

The library was prepared for this event-there were librarians helping at the front and back of the book signing line, one taking dressed up Hedgie around, and several other librarians helping in the auditorium.

There were tons of people at the book talk by Jan Brett including lots of school children that went back to school after her talk. I'm guessing their teachers were disappointed to not stay and have a book signed. The auditorium holds 250 and there were people standing every where.

After she spoke the librarian asked us to clear the middle aisle for the school children to leave. She then asked for two lines-one to purchase books and one to get books signed. She also announced that the first 100 hundred families to get their book signed would receive a free poster. She announced that Jan would sign books for two hours after her talk.

I would guess we ended up in line as number 97 so we did receive a free poster. I'll blog more about that later. After we had our books signed I was in no hurry as most of the people had cleared out. I thanked the local bookseller for being there even though I didn't purchase any books from them. That began a conversation between the bookseller, Jan Brett's husband, and myself.

The bookseller said several teachers did not RSVP and showed up with a school bus full of children ready to listen to Jan Brett. The librarians felt so bad to turn away so many children but there simply wasn't room for them. The teachers should have let the library know they were coming. He said that no one got upset about this and those buses just returned to school for a regular school day. He said Boise people are pretty laid back.

This is where Jan's husband interrupted our conversation and said he never saw another city in America like Boise. He said that he couldn't believe the way our library handled the free 100 posters. He questioned if they planned to give out numbers or tickets. He couldn't imagine with all those people what they were going to do. They said no numbers, it would work out fine. And it did! There were about 10 families in line after me. No one was upset that they ran out of posters. The line was very orderly and everyone waited patiently for their turn.

Jan's husband said that he just couldn't believe how nice everyone in Boise is. He said he grew up in Portland in the 1950's. He said Boise is just like Portland was then.

This was a great compliment for Boise both by how we acted at this book signing and with what Jan's husband said. Thank you to the Boise Public Library, to Rediscovered Books, and to Jan Brett and her staff for this event.

*Note: I wasn't positive that I was speaking to Jan Brett's husband, but he was with Jan helping her pack up and I assumed it was her husband. When I came home I looked her up and saw a picture of them from 2009 which told me it was her husband. He was (is?) a bassist for Boston Symphony Orchestra and their biographies are both very interesting. Just the fact that they did this book tour doing book signings at two different cities a day going across the country in a little more than two weeks is amazing. Even with 39 million books published, both Jan and her husband were so friendly and nice and took time with each person in line. You can tell they enjoy these book tours and meeting her fans.