Pages Booksigning

Since I don't get out to the west coast that often (and probably won't be coming again soon--Rain Dragon was an angel on the plane but I don't think I should push my luck) I thought, perhaps, I should try to do a booksigning while I was out there. I was rather doubtful about it, as attendance at booksignings can be pretty iffy. While I felt like I knew a fair amount of people on the east coast, would anyone even come on the west coast?

However, Pages Bookstore graciously offered to host so my author/illustrator friend Anna Alter, who also came over for the wedding (we shared a house together in Venice Beach) decided to risk it, leave our babies with the husbands, and squeezed in the event for our last day in LA.

Prior leaving for the bookstore we had thought,"Hey, we drive in Boston! We can drive anywhere!" However,  LA traffic and parking quickly humbled us. We were 15 minutes late to...SURPRISE! a big crowd of people:

image from Annelam's flickr album!

I quickly grabbed a book and started the reading:

image from Yucaree's flickr album

and I did the dragon-draw-along I've done hundreds of times during school visits. However, maybe because it has been a while or I still have baby brain, but I completely blanked on how to write the FU, the Chinese word for luck and a parent had to flash me an image off her iphone. My Chinese teacher would be so horrified.

image from Yucaree's flickr album

But it was lovely meeting all my readers, young and old!

image from Annelam's flickr album!

Some were very old readers-- they'd been reading my books for a long time! One girl brought this photo of herself and all my books that she owned:

It was a lovely time!

Cherish (our host at Pages), Anna Alter and me

Thanks so much Pages Bookstore and my west coast readers!