Yesterday the American Library Association announced the 2006 winners of the major children's books awards in their meeting in Seattle. They did a web cast of the awards ceremony itself insuring that the news was equally disseminated. (The broadcast was at 12:00 eastern.)
For a dealer specializing in modern children's books this is always a busy day. After the awards are announced we check to see which of the titles we have and scramble to pick up the ones we don't have. Then we start fielding calls both from other dealers and our collectors on what they have and what they are looking for. If the winner of the Newbery, Caldecott or Printz is already in later printing in the stores or sold primarily to libraries and is not in the stores at all, the price of the book can climb just like a hot stock does on the stock exchange.
Award day is usually hectic, lucrative and most of all it's fun. You get to deal, horse trade and talk books with people who are extremely passionate about their collections.
So where does Murphy come in you ask? At about 10:25am eastern on Monday a Verizon Fiber Optic Tech working on service in the area misread a port and literally pulled the plug on me. I not only lost my internet access but also both my phone lines. (The analogy of eggs and a basket comes to mind.) It took Verizon 29 hours to get a tech back out and about 5 minutes for him to fix the problem once he got here. Excuse me, I have to go sulk some more....
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