Cinco Puntos at NCTE in Philly

The National Council of Teachers of English (aka NCTE) is gathering this weekend in Philadelphia. We're delighted. Philly is one of our favorite convention cities. It's a great walking city and the Reading Terminal Market is just across the street from the Convention Center. Good books and Philly cheesesteaks and Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. Life is good. The NCTE is separated into two parts--the regular convention which is from Friday, Nov 20 to Sunday Nov 22. Cinco Puntos will be displaying our books in the exhibit area at booth 641. And Sunday evening the convention separates into a number of different parts, with aficionados of different disciplines going their separate ways. Cinco Puntos follows the ALAN Strand, teachers of YA fiction. This year's theme is Scattering Light on Our Freedom to Think, See, Imagine, very apropos to being in historic Philadelphia. This is a two day gathering of passionate readers, literature teachers, fans and writers talking together about YA fiction, their favorite books. Lots of panels, lots of face to face talk, lots of free books, lots of books to buy. It's exciting.

Eve Tal is in-country from Israel and she will be in Philly to help us celebrate her new book Cursing Columbus. The novel is the much anticipated sequel to Double Crossing, both novels tracing the life of Raizel, a Jewish girl who with her family immigrates from Russia and settles in the Lower East Side of New York City. Eve will be on the panel New Voices: Spreading Light, Sharing their Work at 8:55am Tuesday.

And Benjamin Alire Sáenz will be there too, signing books at our booth all day Sunday. He has two new books from Cinco Puntos: his newest YA novel Last Night I Sang to the Monster and his illustrated bilingual children's book The Dog Who Loved Tortillas / La perrita que le encantaban tortillas. Ben will be on a 11am panel on Monday morning--Splintered Lights of War and Strife in YA Literature.

Representing Cinco Puntos will be the old folks, Lee and Bobby Byrd.