With booksellers from all over the country gathering in New York City for BEA, what better time for the ABA and the CBC to organize a tour of the studios of children’s book illustrators? The fun began on the Upper East Side, with a reception amid a colorful setting: a retrospective exhibition of Peter Sís’s drawings, watercolors, and gouaches, “Cartography of the Mind,” inside the Bohemian National Hall Building on East 73rd Street.
After a catered lunch, the 60 participating booksellers and PW split up and made their way in small groups to the various studios. Booksellers used taxis and public transportation to travel around Manhattan, and the ABA provided a bus to transport them to studios in Brooklyn.
Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, ABA’s senior program officer, told PW that the day went well, even better than last year, because, this time, all the booksellers visited the Sís exhibit and had lunch together before splitting up, and the ABA made it easier for the booksellers to get around Brooklyn by providing transportation there for them.
“Everyone loved it, Dallanegra-Sanger said. “It’s the most intimate way for booksellers and illustrators to connect – in their homes and studios.”
