On May 28, librarians, teachers, authors, and stakeholders from the publishing world descended upon McGraw-Hill headquarters in New York City to engage in SLJ's annual "Day of Dialog." Keynote speaker, Jacqueline Woodson, kicked off the event sharing her inspiration and process behind her book Brown Girl Dreaming (Penguin, August 2014). She read excerpts from the novel in verse, which she tells SLJ, took her three years to complete with trips to Ohio and South Carolina to speak to relatives piecing together her past while taking notes by hand. The first panel on "Wordless Picture Books," with four illustrators, Aaron Becker, Raul Colon, Molly Idle, and Bob Staake, featured a discussion about how wordless picture books empower readers. The panel lent itself to some humorous, quote-worthy moments, such as when Molly Idle, creator of Flora and the Penguin (Chronicle, September 2014), said about finding her voice as a writer, "I think my voice is having no voice at all." In fact, the entire day lent itself to moments of levity and timely discussion, like during the "Diversity in Middle Grade Fiction" panel, and we've posted some captured moments here. Stay tuned, more coverage from SLJ's "Day of Dialog" to come.

Keynote speaker Jacqueline Woodson spoke
about writing Brown Girl Dreaming.

Free books? Yes, please. Librarians get their books and galleys from the publishers room.

Participants from "Day of Dialog" receive the "How do you library?" bag. (hashtag #howdoyoulibrary)

The ladies of Chronicle publishing.

The “Wordless Picture Books” panel with Raul Colon, Molly Idle, Aaron Becker, and Bob Staake.

"It's amazing how many words we are using," says Bluebird' s creator Bob Staake
during the "Wordless Picture Books" panel.

The "Diversity in Middle Grade Fiction" panel with Brenda Woods, Kwame Alexander,
Raul Gonzalez, Coe Booth, and Kat Ye

During the "Diversity in Middle Grade Fiction" panel Brenda Woods said, "We've got
to give kids credit for seeing humanity, not race."

The "Unreliable YA Narrators" panel with Meg Wolitzer, Jodi Lynn Anderson, Alaya Dawn Johnson,
E. Lockhart, and Barry Lyga.

The "Storied Lives" panel with Lois Ehlert, Chris Raschka, Peter Sis, and Raina Telgemeier, during which the illustrator/authors shared the stories behind their stories. The headgear was all made by moderator and master crafter Paula Willey to celebrate these authors' books.

Recounting when she was asked where she got her ideas, The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life Lois Ehlert (far left) said, "If I knew where the ideas came from, I certainly would go to that spot more frequently."