Accordion music filled the room thanks to the incredible Thomas Chen...
Here's Jean-Claude, owner of La Creperie (my favorite local restaurant) who was responsible for making the divine pastries. Next to him is Jean-Christophe, who helped me with French slang and expressions in the book. (And coincidentally, Thomas, Jean-Claude, and Jean-Christophe are all names of characters in The Ruby Notebook! C'est bizarre, n'est-ce pas?)
I love that people of all ages came out to celebrate... the three-year-old crowd is endlessly entertaining... they really got into dancing. Against Ian's (hubbie's) advice, I held an accordion dance contest, which turned out to be tres amusant (thanks for being good sports, everyone!)
I read a few little sections of the book, and everyone graciously laughed when they were supposed to (I learned from my Lil Dude that you can't go wrong with potty humor... in this case, pigeon potty humor). The teens there seemed excited about sharing their new French vocab word (me*de or mer*e, hehehe) with their French teacher at school. They promptly book-marked that page...
I was so happy to see so many teen girl fans of The Indigo Notebook, who were eager to read Ruby.... They all looked supercute-- some dressed in tres chic French outfits.
There was signing with a ruby red pen...
This lovely fan drove with her mom and sister all the way from south Denver for the party! I was honored!
You'll notice from the empty doilies that nearly all the pastries were all eaten by the time I started signing... but miraculously there was one heavenly pastry left for me... (merci, merci)
It's funny, but before the party I'd been worried I ordered too many pastries, and wondering what I'd do with all the leftovers... another party maybe? Ridiculous... (here's the line for pastries, out the door...)
Nothing cuter than little hands oh-so-carefully carrying a little masterpiece...
So many writer friends showed up to celebrate... here I'm talking with fabulous picture book author Natasha Wing (who has a reading at Old Firehouse Books on Oct 16).
Thank you Old Firehouse Books and everyone else for making this such a special night for me!
xoxo,
Laura