Salon du livre

The biggest book fair in North America happens every year in Montréal. I have never been, but this year I decided to remedy the situation. Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous day and off I went. I wanted to see Barbara Reid. My plan was to spend a couple of hours strolling leisurely from booth to booth checking the novelties from Europe. Can you guess what happened? Of course, not what I planned. When they say this fair is big, it is not an understatement. It is huge. There was hardly any place to turn around, that’s how many people there were. A lot of kids too. I don’t think I spent more than one hour there. I walked around the perimeter of the fair, toured quickly the children’s section to have a look at the illustrators and left. Crowds are making me antsy. And there were too many books! Imagine being Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. At the beginning, everything is exciting, but after a while there are just too many candies. There is no way Charlie can ever taste them all. Same with me. No way could I have a look at all those books anyway. If I will go back next year, I will go with a plan, get in, follow the plan and get out. I was happy to see so many kids though. And parents.