After the festival’s over comes a week of recovery. The Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival has been a highlight of every year for me since 2002 until it was cruelly interrupted by the coronavirus. This year it was back, entailing leaving home about 8:30 AM and returning about 9:30 PM. That was last week. This week was recuperation and relishing the memories.
From the beginning and permeating this year’s festival, friendships that had previously been taken for granted as annual occurrences renewed after a four-year gap. We had missed each other. The air held joy at being together again to share books, to meet writers and illustrators, and to hear their stories.
This festival held an added bonus for me with my books available for signing. Many of my festival-going friends, aware of my twelve-year concentration on this Keats biography, reacted with congratulations that included the words, “at last.” I can’t overstate how much that community support has meant to me on the journey and at its completion. I’m guessing it’s what an athlete feels who has a cheering section in the stands. I loved signing books for these loyal supporters.
A couple of other signings were notable for different reasons. One young woman approached my table grinning broadly, and holding Becoming Ezra Jack Keats close. She said, “I want you to sign this to my mother. She has taught preschool for years and just loves Keats. This is a surprise for her birthday.” Then Doug Salati, winner of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award and the Caldecott Medal, brought his copy to be signed. He had credited Keats work as an inspiration in his reward acceptance and was eager to know Keats’ story. His interest in continuing to learn illustrated the point of Linda Williams Jackson in her talk on Friday, “You can always tell the writers who do not read.”
Three full days of inspiration, laughter, heart-tugging, and challenges put this book-lover on a high, and then it was over. What comes next? I borrow from my Mississippi role model, Eudora Welty, and move to the garden where I can mull over a great quote from the festival as I dig. “So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who sent their books out into the world, like ships onto the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message, ‘You are not alone’.”