In Brief: May 10

S.E. Hinton, whose iconic young adult novel The Outsiders is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, visited the Barnes & Noble in Princeton, N.J. on Tuesday, May 8, where a crowd of more than 450 fans greeted her. Hinton, who resides in her native Tulsa, Okla., was in the New York area for Monday’s Children’s Choice Book Awards, where she presented the Teen Book of the Year to Cassandra Clare for Clockwork Prince.

A webcast on Thursday, May 10, with James Patterson gave fans a first look at Jamie Grimm, star of the upcoming I Funny: A Middle School Story, out December 2012. Other animated segments star Rafe Khatchadorian of Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life and the newly released follow-up: Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! Seen here, Patterson’s 14-year-old son, Jack – himself a middle-schooler – interviews the author. The program will be rebroadcast on Tuesday, May 15.

Author Mary Pope Osborne is donating a 28-book boxed set of her Magic Tree House series to every third-grader and third-grade classroom in the Newark (N.J.) Public School District. The books – some 120,000 in total – will be purchased and distributed through First Book’s Marketplace, the online bookstore that offers children’s books to eligible community programs and schools. Osborne visited Newark on April 26 to deliver the first boxed sets. Photo: Amanda Brown for New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

The Soho branch of contemporary furniture store Room & Board in New York City was the suitably chic location for a reading and signing on Saturday, May 5, with author/illustrator Sujean Rim, creator of the fashion-conscious Birdie character, most recent of Birdie Plays Dress-Up. The shop provided crayons and Birdie coloring sheets for the kids in attendance, many of whom were decked out in Birdie-appropriate outfits.

Charlesbridge Publishing in Watertown, Mass., is promoting Children’s Book Week with a pop-up art exhibit on the ground floor of its building, featuring original children’s book illustrations by Rafael López, David McPhail, and Don Tate, among others. The display will be up through Sunday, May 13. Pictured here (l. to r.) at Monday’s opening reception are: Stuart J. Murphy, author of the I See I Learn series; Charlesbridge president and publisher Brent Farmer; and David Hyde Costello, author and illustrator of Little Pig Joins the Band.

Former wrestler (billed as “The Thrill from Israel, Buster Maccabi”) turned children’s book author/illustrator Richie Friema signed copies of Terple: Always Dream Bigger at Greetings & Readings in Hunt Valley, Md., on Saturday, May 5. This is the first book in his newly launched publishing program, Trust Your Cape. Frieman is donating a portion of the sales proceeds to various nonprofit organizations; this month’s recipient is the Mt. Washington (Md.) Pediatric Hospital.