sonnystrait_30, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

As I mentioned last time, I had Sonny Strait at my library for my Anime Club teens last weekend. They adored him; some even came to both of his appearances, even though they were at two different libraries half an hour's drive apart. (Groupies! How sweet!) He does the voices for "Hughes" on Fullmetal Alchemist and "Krillin" on Dragonball Z, among others for Funimation series. Plus he's been a comic book artist for a long time--got a big break drawing for Elfquest--and has his own manga-style series out now. Here you see his handiwork on one of the teen's jeans. :-D [Can't get any photos to insert into this entry, don't know why; so click on the caption above to see the set on Flickr. Arrgh.]

I had such a great time meeting him and talking about his work and books and comics and the weather in Texas vs. Ohio weather (less humidity in Ohio, but just barely), and other assorted stuff. He is a very nice gentleman and gave a great Q&A session for the audience--he had them laughing a lot as he performed his characters' voices but also various Disney characters (he does a brilliant Donald Duck and Mickey). 

He had advice for aspiring actors as well as for artists and funny anecdotes from convention appearances (crazed fans "glomping" him--hugging--which I learned stands for Grab, Latch On, Maintain Pressure. Leave it to fanboys to come up with an acronym for a hug.) he answered questions for nearly an hour, and then did a lot of autographing. He is a very generous guy. I had a very large audience for a teen program (41!!), and I think half of them bought his book to have him draw something in it and sign it, so he was happy and I was happy. I had the local independent bookstore provide copies of the book, so they got a little bit of money out of it.  All in all it was a great day for my teen programming, I was very happy it went so well. But of course, now all my anime club members want us to have a speaker every month!

Sorry I've not been posting for a little while. I've been busy and tired and trying to finish one huge load of photos before going on to the next big batch, but it always takes longer than I expect to edit, label and upload them, and I still try to keep up with the rest of my life and not let my shutterbugging completely take over my days... I got back from the Rolex trip (still uploading those! right now I'm having Flickr Uploadr technical difficulties, aaaaaugh!) and the next day went straight into a trip down to North Carolina to support my sister while she defended her PhD dissertation. My parents and I had a great four day vacation; it rained hard the first two days but we just chose not to do any outdoor sightseeing and so we avoided most of it. Went to the Museum of North Carolina History, for example, in Raleigh. I came back from that trip and the very next day went to a two-day teen librarians' conference a couple of hours' drive from home. Poor Goldie hardly knew what to think: I was gone for days, home one night, gone again, home again only one night, poor thing. (But she loves her Auntie Sandy, who took care of her for most of that time, and actually she is quite spoiled by all of the attention when I'm not here--she gets the run of TWO apartments!) Then I had a couple of days' breather, no more traveling, but all this past week I have been out of the library doing summer reading booktalks. Literally, all day, in the same school, talking to 10 classes in a row at the 5th-6th grade level. They're a lot of fun, I love kids that age, and I enjoy bragging about books and tempting them to come to the library in the summer with cool programs (this year we're doing "Catch the Reading Bug" for K-6, complete with a live bug show, and "Book an Adventure" for 7-12, which I piggybacked off the new Indiana Jones movie--so for example we'll have a Cliffhanger Matinee double feature). But it is exhausting by the end of the day, and to go right back in again the next day starts to wear on you. And, at the same time I was freaking out as I took care of last minute details and emergencies regarding my big Saturday program: voice actor/artist/author Sonny Strait came to speak to my Anime Club yesterday. 

I'll talk a little more about him when I get around to the photos of his visit. :-) But suffice to say, he was wonderful, the teens loved him, and we only had one last minute crisis--  his cell phone call in the middle of my booktalk, two hours before his flight departure time,  to ask me why his flight was listed for the next day!!! (Turns out he was looking at Dallas Fort Worth airport instead of Dallas Love Field--but I didn't even know there were two Dallas airports, I didn't see that when I booked the ticket and sent him the itinerary, and the computer itinerary didn't say anything but DALLAS! ack! Talk about panicked, til we called the airline and straightened it out.) So, I had the run to the airport Thursday night to pick him up and take him to his hotel, and the driving back and forth to and from the hotel and library yesterday, etc, but we had a nice conversation in the car and he is the sweetest guy. You can check him out here. Oh, and I was going to blog about the conference, too, because I got to meet two terrific teen authors, Todd Strasser and John Green. Plus I had a mini-wild-kingdom extravaganza, photowise, while enjoying the grounds of the conference center.  But that'll wait for another post when--say it with me all together folks--I get the photos uploaded. :-)

Meanwhile, back in the barn...