For the love of reading: My Manila International Book Fair finds
Early last week I got an email from Vibal, the company that published most of my children’s books over the years. They were going to send me a contract and could I send it back signed, as soon as possible?
“What is this about?” I replied.
Turns out Vibal was putting out a collection of adventure stories in time for the Manila International Book Fair and my picture book Mousie Goes to Vigan was included. Of course I signed and returned the contract as soon as I could.
“When will the book be launched?” I asked Gilmeri Gem Mallorca, the one who messaged me. “I want to buy more copies.”
She was unsure of the book’s release but said she would update me.
On Sept. 14, the opening day of the book fair, I couldn’t come to SMX because of previous commitments but messaged Gilmeri at 5 p.m. to ask on what day the book would be released.
“There’s only one copy left!” she said of Fun Philippine Adventure Stories, the anthology containing my Mousie story. Apparently it had sold out!
“Akin na yon!” I messaged back. “Huwag mo yan ibenta!” I was fretting because the soonest I could get to the book fair was Saturday; my Friday had back-to-back classes.
“I can only come Saturday morning,” I said and told Gilmeri to be sure to set my book aside, plus another Vibal book, Balita, by Jose Victor Torres. She reassured me she would.
On Saturday, Sept. 16, my daughter Hannah and I arrived at SMX at 9:45 a.m. and the queue was already coiling all around the lobby like a snake. Once we got in we made a beeline for Chikiting Books on Aisle D. Chikiting is Vibal’s imprint for children.
As I feared, Gilmeri was late and no one knew about the reserved books. Their staff people were dispatched to the main Vibal booth and also the stockroom. As a result, an extra copy was found in the stockroom so I now had two copies of Fun Philippine Adventure Stories”! Just for good measure I scooped up more copies of Mousie Goes to Vigan for my “future grandchildren,” I told my 20-year-old daughter, which is going to happen “a long, long time from now!”
Breathing more easily, we made our way up and down all the aisles. The fair had only been open a half hour and yet the corridors were getting more and more crowded. One could barely even get through Fully Booked, which didn’t seem to be having a sale! But people were filling their carts like crazy.
I spied the Adarna booth and my friend Ani Almario, daughter of National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario. I was happy to see that I could buy a whole set of Isang Harding Papel, Edsa, Ito Ang Diktadura and The Magic Arrow, also for “future grandchildren” which had Ani in stitches!
We just had to spend time at Vibal’s gorgeous booth, done up with costumes and vignettes of a bygone era. I paused here and paid tribute to the late Esther Vibal, who went out of her way to encourage my writing by buying/publishing 40-plus children’s stories from me! I will forever be grateful for this and I would not even be the writer I am today without her!
From there we went on and spotted the famous comic artist Tarantadong Kalbo who is greatly admired by my son Joshua. I had to buy his National Book Award-winning eponymous book Tarantadong Kalbo. He is Kevin Eric Raymundo in real life and signed the copy for my son, but next time I will buy his other books—for myself.
When I got home, I finally had a chance to peruse BALITA: The Story of Philippine Journalism by Jose Victor Z. Torres. As expected there was a section on the Roces clan and their “newspaper empire.”
We are doubly related to this clan: my husband Roberto is the great grandson of Alejandro “Moy” Roces Sr., the same person that Roces Avenue (just a hundred meters from my house) is named after.
On the other hand, my great grandaunt Inocencia Reyes married Moy’s younger brother Rafael Roces Sr., producing the Roces-Reyes clan to whom we can attribute our National Book Award-winning cookbook Celebrations (Anvil Publishing).
Author Torres details in the book how it was really Rafael Roces Sr. who deserves the credit for the creation of the newspaper threesome Tribune-La Vanguardia-Taliba. You can read the book for more potentially contentious details, which I will not write about here since my husband is the great grandson of one Roces brother and I am the great grandniece of another!
Suffice it to say that I think BALITA is well written and researched, and that the author is the DLSU prof of my bunso. Otherwise I would not have known of this excellent book written by a fellow Vibal author!
I was happy to see the crowd that Saturday, even glad in a way that I almost lost my chance of having an extra copy of Fun Philippine Adventure Stories! To think that an anthology of local children’s stories priced at P638 could sell out by 5 p.m. on opening day! (“Ilan yung nabenta?” I asked the cashier. “Madami,” she replied.)
This means that Filipinos are not so disinterested in books, as is sometimes believed.
And—for someone to whom writing books for children is the ultimate passion and source of joy—this makes me glad.