Hooray for Author Day!
I just read the most hilarious picture book (I’m reading a lot more of those these days!):
Author’s Day, by Daniel Pinkwater, is the story of an author (Mr. Wink-Porter) who shows up for an author visit at a school, only to discover that everyone thinks he is the author of The Fuzzy Bunny, when in fact he wrote The Bunny Brothers. His day goes downhill from there as he is fed pancakes with chunks of crayon in them by the kindergarteners, nearly gets tied up by the sixth graders, and is asked by one of the teachers to read her 900-page manuscript while he eats his lunch. It is HILARIOUS. Let me give you an excerpt so you can get an idea of how wry and unusual and funny it is:
“Children, I am sure Mr. Bramwell Wink-Porter would like to spend more time with you,” Mrs. Feenbogen said. “But now it is time for you to return to your classrooms.”
“But we haven’t finished tying him up!”
“Perhaps Mr. Bramwell Wink-Porter will come back someday, and you can tie him up then. Would that be possible, Mr. Wink-Porter?”
“I would be delighted,” Bramwell Wink-Porter said.
The sixth graders left, muttering to themselves.
— from Author’s Day, by Daniel Pinkwater
I feel like this book must be especially hilarious for anyone who’s ever done an author visit (not that I’ve ever been nearly tied up by sixth graders!), so I wonder if other readers will love it as much as his fellow authors. But I for one think it’s absurdly brilliant, and every school should have a copy! :-)
Luckily I’ve never had a terrible author visit like that (knock on wood!). On the contrary, I’ve had mostly totally awesome school visits, and one of the best ones ever was a couple of weeks ago, when I went to Webster to visit the Bartlett Jr./Sr. High School and Webster Middle School. OH MY GOODNESS they were SO AMAZING to me!
It is so SO thrilling for an author when we show up at a school and realize they’ve prepared for us—like, they actually know what we’ve written and they’ve made the books available to the kids and gotten everyone excited ahead of time. I know librarians are super-busy people, so we really appreciate them taking the time!
And then to also put up signs and promote the event is crazy awesome! It makes me feel like the luckiest author ever. I mean, check it out…a BANNER!:
Holy bananas! How cool is that? :-) And look how gorgeous this sign is:
Not only that, the amazing librarians also coordinated with a local bookstore so students could order my books and I could sign them (yay!):
(Some of the kids who didn’t have books to sign asked for a creative alternative…)
Really? You want me to sign your hand? OK…now I feel like a celebrity!
Not only THAT, but the amazing librarian also got local reporters to come in and write articles about the visit, including this lovely article in the Telegram Towns. Awwww! Such a terrific article! (Just so no one gets confused, Pet Trouble is under my own name (not Erin Hunter) and is not (yet!) New York Times-bestselling. But from your pen to the universe’s ears!) ;-) Anyway, I thought it was really well-written and SO nice!
And the mastermind behind all this fabulousness?
AMAZING librarian Suzanne Larson! :-) Hooray!
along with….
Fabulous librarian Connie Marr!
I really appreciate all the work they put into this. It was so so so much fun, and I LOVED meeting with the book group who’d read Never Bite a Boy on the First Date; you were all so smart and interesting and insightful. :-) Good luck to those of you who want to be writers, too!
Thank you again to both schools for having me…hopefully you all had as much fun as I did! :-)
(And thank you for not tying me up or feeding me crayon pancakes…) 😉
Quote of the Day:
Sue: "Nobody quite like the Material Girl to empower my Cheerios—just like your hairdresser has empowered you to look absolutely ridiculous." — Glee