I Rocked the Drop!

A few kidlit blogs brought this interesting opportunity to my attention: Readergirlz “Rock the Drop” campaign, which took place across the country today. Here’s a blurb from their website, outlining the event:

Operation Teen Book Drop 2009 (TBD ’09) is being held in celebration of Support Teen Literature Day, April 16th, 2009. Through the efforts of readergirlz, GuysLitWire, YALSA, and publishers, teen patients in pediatric hospitals across the United States will receive 8,000 new young-adult novels, audiobooks, and graphic novels.

Inciting all to participate in Operation TBD in its drive to spur reading on a national scale, readergirlz invites teens and YA authors to leave a book in a public place on April 16th. Participants can download bookplates to insert into the books they’ll leave behind. The TBD Post-Op Party is open to everyone at the rgz blog at 6:00 PM Pacific/9:00 PM Eastern. Come rock the drop in 2009!

So a few weeks ago I downloaded and printed out the bookplate for my YA novel. I spent some time considering “drop sites”–where would teens be likely to find my book? The local McDonald’s? The park across from a nearby high school? If I left it in the botanic garden, would a black teen find it? Any teen at all? Today I glued the bookplate onto the inside cover and headed over to the garden. I figured I’d leave it on the whispering bench next to the fountain (the same spot featured on the book’s cover), and then maybe sit on a distant bench and wait to see what happened. As I walked through the garden, however, I found myself becoming more and more anxious…the garden was packed–it’s a beautiful day here in Brooklyn, and the schools are still out on break, so there were families galore. Halfway to the fountain I saw a group of black teenage girls–should I stop them and just hand over my book? What if I put the book down and someone ran after me, thinking I’d left it behind by mistake? What if I left the book, waited and watched, and NOBODY picked it up? What if only white folks sat by the fountain, saw the black girl on the book’s cover, and felt the novel wasn’t “for them”? Would it matter if a white teen *did* pick it up and took it home? All this ruminating started to get out of hand, so I just went over to the bench (which was empty), put the book down, and walked straight out of the garden. Maybe someone picked it up, maybe not. Maybe the security guards will find it when the garden closes at 6pm, or someone will take it to the Visitor Center and leave it in the lost & found box. Ultimately, I’d be happy if *anyone* read my book–any gender, age, race. I have the same hope for the library–that once Wish is available, it’ll reach an unlimited range and number of readers. The most you can do is put your work out there–offer it up to the universe!–and hope someone somewhere notices…