I just went through my email inbox and deleted all the email correspondence that led up to Tad Hills’s visit to the library yesterday.  Yowsa.  There were at least 25 emails – communications with Tad, with the teachers at the elementary school in Northborough that he visited yesterday morning, and with the woman in charge of author appearances at Random House.  It’s amazing how much work an event like this is for all concerned, and deleting those emails made me wonder whether the patrons at the library have any understanding of what’s involved in setting up library events.

That aside, the event was a huge success.  Only about 40 parents and kids attended, which was disappointing (at least 20 people stood us up!), but they were a fabulous crowd.  Tad is a rare combination of a talented author/artist and born teacher.  He read from a special giant version of Duck, Duck, Goose, then brought out a felt board with scrambled felt pieces on it.  He held up each piece and talked to the kids about its shape (circle, rectangle, banana that swallowed a grapefruit), then assembled the shapes together on the board to make – Duck!  Even better, once Duck was fully assembled, he showed the kids how he could change Duck’s expression with tiny adjustments, like shifting Duck’s eye pupil, or moving and molding Duck’s eyebrow, or changing the angle of Duck’s beak and head.  Even though the kids in the audience were mostly quite young, they were transfixed by these transformations.  And I really appreciated seeing someone else work with a felt board and felt pieces, since this is something entirely new to me that I’m trying to bring to my storytimes (I definitely learned a lot from watching Tad, most importantly that I need to slow down my felt board presentations and have more fun with them).

Then Tad put the felt board away and got out a watercolor pad and paints and painted Duck for the kids.  Duck is standing happily in some grass, with a blue sky overhead, and Tad very generously signed the painting “To my friends at the Harvard Public Library – Tad Hills.”  Roy has promised me that we’ll get a frame for the painting and hang it in the children’s room (I was originally advocating for the painting to go in my office, but that would be a bit greedy of me…).

For me, there were two best parts of the day:  meeting Tad’s mother, who drove out from Boston to see him, and the enthusiastic reaction of one of my favorite fifth graders to meeting Tad.  Tad’s mom (and Tad) are distantly related to Jim, and it was fun talking to Joanna about Jim’s uncle Jack and his father Ned, and also talking to her about the Bullard Farm, which I’ve only been to once but now would love to visit again.

And that fifth grader?  She and a friend from the same grade came up to me and asked, tremblingly, whether there was room for them to attend.  Of course, I said, and as I said that, this fifth grader spotted the copies of Duck & Goose on the table in front of me.  “That’s the BEST book!” she exclaimed, and I smiled and pointed out Tad to her, saying, “Why don’t you tell him that?”  As she realized that Tad was Tad, her eyes got huge, and she ran over to him and yelled, “You’re AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!”  Then both girls ran out of the room, and came back within about a minute with multiple sheets of lined paper and begged Tad for autographs.  Of course he obliged, and even did little drawings for each girl and for several other girls who appeared out of nowhere.

Thanks, Tad.  Everyone had a great time, and we all really appreciate your driving from New York City (and back again last evening!) to visit our library!!