PRIMARY MISSION: Fly to Italy and present yourself at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Soak up atmosphere. For about two seconds. Then attend eleventy-million appointments* each day for 3.5 days discussing books, books, books with lovely agents, publishers and rights managers, who all begin to blur into one unless they have a particular distinguishing feature such as:
(a) a cute accent(b) stylish boots(c) they are male(d) all of the above.
Followed by evening functions which consist of much eating and drinking and lead to crawling into bed, exhausted, at midnight.
SECONDARY MISSION: After the winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is announced: engage in the sport of Shaun Tan spotting.
STATUS: Accepted.
HEREWITH A PHOTO ESSAY FROM THE AGENT IN THE FIELD
FINAL MISSION: Locate some kind of motor vehicle that will convey you and your guests to end-of-day activities...
* When we say eleventy million here - we might mean closer to twelve, but we're sure you get the idea.
