This week, an author and his on-screen double come face-to-face; authors and friends talk shop; toys go on the road; good company (and coats) keep authors warm; magic is in the air at a joint book launch; and a festival draws a big crowd.
Double Take
The cast of the upcoming Goosebumps movie gathered at Scholastic headquarters on October 12 for a panel discussion about making the film and R.L. Stine’s series upon which it is based. The event was a benefit for the Pajama Program’s One Million Good Nights initiative, which provides sleepwear and books to children in need. Here, R.L. Stine and Jack Black – who plays Stine in the movie – share an inside joke. Stine also makes a cameo appearance in the movie.
The Perks of Being on an Author Panel
Author Ava Dellaira (r.) gathered with fellow authors and friends Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Pocket Books) and Liz Maccie (Lessons I Never Learned at Meadowbrook Academy, Diversion Books) at Pages: A Bookstore, in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Dellaira just completed the tour for the paperback release of Love Letters to the Dead (Macmillan/Square Fish). Dellaira and Chbosky first met when Dellaira worked on the movie set for The Perks of Being a Wallflower. She asked Chbosky if he would read her work; he encouraged her to publish the novel, and the rest is history.
Toys Meet Girl
While on a five-city tour for Toys Meet Snow, the latest in the picture book series by Emily Jenkins, illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky chatted with Winnwood Elementary student Giana Copeland in Kansas City, Mo., following his drawing demonstration showing characters from the book. Zelinsky is visiting Boston this month and Washington, D.C., next month.
Authors In-Tent
Despite soggy weather, the annual Morristown Festival of Books held in Morristown, N.J., went off without a hitch. Following their young adult panel on October 3, authors (from l.) Susane Colasanti (City Love, HarperCollins/Tegen); Kendall Kulper (Drift & Dagger, Little, Brown); and Sarah Darer Littman (Backlash, Scholastic Press), autographed books for attendees in the book-signing tent.
A Highly Unusual Book Launch
Lisa Papademetriou (A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic, HarperCollins) and Sarah Mylinowski, a co-author of Upside Down Magic (Scholastic Press), shared a book launch party for their respective novels at Odyssey Books in South Hadley, Mass., on October 3. The store hosted a magical party, which included Papademetriou and Mylinowski judging entrance exams to get into the Odyssey Magic Academy. Guests were served Luna Juice, which appears in A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic and the authors worked with kids to craft magical wish vials with glitter sand.
When in Chappaqua…
The 2015 Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival was held on October 3 at Bell Middle School in Chappaqua, NY. The festival is the largest in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-state region and featured 85 children’s book authors and illustrators. Approximately 6,000 people attended the festival. Here, David Ezra Stein reads his I’m My Own Dog (Candlewick) to a group of attendees.
