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For the past six years now the Eric Carle Museum has hosted an annual event in New York City where authors, illustrators, editors, and more have met and mingled with the chance of bidding on great works of art, honored folks in the field, and generally supported the museum and all it entails.  And for at least five of those years I have had the pleasure of attending in 2007 (here and here), 2008, 2009, 2010, and now I have a 2011 notch on my bedpost as well (so to speak).  Each year came with its own memories too. In 2007 I watched the wife of Mo Willems goose her husband (who had to take the freight elevator up to the event because he was wearing jeans) to show how the new Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus stuffed animal would work if you wanted to make it speak.  In 2008 I stumbled into a vast room that was filled from wall to wall with desserts, akin to a Room of Requirement (though I was searching for the loo at the time).  Upon returning to my table I watched Tony DiTerlizzi  (or was it Mo Willems again?) lob spitballs at the adjoining table.  2009 consisted of the Very Hungry Caterpillar cake . . . a cake that returns in my dreams sometimes urging me to eat it (adjust its book to read “And she wasn’t a little librarian anymore. She was a big fat librarian!).  And of course in 2010 I had just returned from a lovely jaunt to Chicago’s SCBWI chapter to discover that I was pregnant.  Immediately after this discovery I ran over to the Carle Honors where I spent the entire time drinking loads of water, staring morosely at the glasses of wine going around.

Which brings us up to speed.  Here we are in 2011 and things have changed a little.  I’m less intimidated by the big names.  I know a nifty spot near this year’s event space (the restaurant Guastavino’s) where I could change from comfy shoes to high heeled bits of painful ridiculousness.  I’m no longer pregnant.  And . . .

Okay, so I lied to you just now.  Fact of the matter is that I’m still intimidated by the big names.  Take Lois Ehlert.  She was amongst the various folks being honored alongside Karen Nelson Hoyle, Jeanne Steig and Michael di Capua.  If her name rings no bells then surely old Chicka Chicka Boom Boom does.  She created the art for that one, amongst her many other titles.  So when it was suggested that I hop on over and give her a howdy, I clung to my security blanket/best buddy Lori Ess of Scholastic Book Group and made my way over. And yes, I was terrified.

Cleverly checking my bag that evening I managed to also check my camera, so it is to Leah Goodman that I thank for many of the images shown in t

Yeah, this week is party week, baby!  First I recap a Robert Forbes party alongside Cynthia von Buhler’s event of the year.  Now I turn my attention to a party beneath a bridge.  The 59th Street Bridge, if you’re going to be technical about it.  Picture, if you will, a glassed enclosure nestled sweetly beneath one of the city’s smaller bridges.  The place was Guastavino’s and the event The Eric Carle Honors of 2010.

You see, each year my favorite Museum (The Eric Carle Museum) honors folks in the children’s literary community that have made a contribution in some manner.  These honors are split into four parts.  You have your “Bridge”, your “Mentor”, your “Angel” and your “Artist”.  More on those later.

On this particular day I was flying in from Chicago, desperately hoping to get an early flight so that I’d make it to the Honors on time.  In point of fact I did finagle a flight and even managed to get home, dress up, and run hell-for-leather in the direction of the subway with enough time.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t walk limping and dripping sweat into the restaurant.  But I was a limping, sweaty, ON TIME individual and really, isn’t that what truly matters?

The party was hopping by the time I arrived anyway.  Lots of tiny food and, as readers all know, tiny food = excellent party.  Particularly when that tiny food involves prosciutto in some way.  Prosciutto is the cupcake of the meat world.  It’s like salty meat-flavored gum.  Delicious.

Each Carle Honor event tends to auction off original art by the luminaries in the children’s literary field.  I do not usually participate since auctions suggest disposable income and children’s librarianship suggests nothing of the sort.  Still, it’s a lot of fun to look and see what other folks are bidding on.  As I circled (and stared with great longing at my personal favorite, an Art Spiegelman work shown here) I thought about original art and where it belongs.  It has occurred to me that if I were an artist, a big time children’s illustrator of some sort, and I wanted to donate my life’s work to someone, I would probably want to give it to an organization like The Carle.  Giving my work to a big library or museum is all well and good, but I’d prefer to hand it over to a group that cares entirely about children’s art for the good of the whole and not as a side venture.

These thoughts swam in my head in part because I learned tha