Barbers Touch Down at ‘The Today Show’
Authors, identical twins and (former and current) NFLers Tiki and Ronde Barber stopped by The Today Show to promote their latest book for children, Wild Card (S&S/Wiseman, Aug.), in which the Hidden Valley Eagles’ eighth-grade season is threatened when the team’s star kicker is benched. During the segment on the show (where Tiki Barber is a correspondent), the Barbers discussed their book with co-host Matt Lauer ([click here] www.hulu.com/watch/95692/nbc-today-show-barber-brothers-discuss-new-book for a video clip). Wild Card is the sixth children’s book the brothers have written.
Live (Authors) at the Kennedy Center
Celebrating its 14th year, the Kennedy Center’s Multicultural Children’s Book Festival was held earlier this month in Washington D.C., part of the Center’s Open House Arts Festival, which also included music, magic and street performance. Six children’s book authors and illustrators took part, reading from and signing copies of their books. Seen here are participants (l. to r.) Linda Sue Park, Monica Brown, Shane Evans, Brian Collier, Anne Sibley O’Brien and Tonya Bolden. About the event, Brown said, “It was so much fun—I signed for four straight hours!”
Beard’s ‘Jungle’ in New Jersey
The annual Princeton Children’s Book Festival was recently held at the Princeton Library in New Jersey, and nearly 50 children’s book authors and illustrators—including Peter Brown, Alan Katz and Rebecca Stead, among many more—read from and signed copies of their latest children’s books. Here, two young readers show off some artwork of their own with debut author Alex Beard, whose The Jungle Grapevine (Abrams, Sept.) offers a twist on the childhood game of “telephone,” as jungle animals get carried away by mixed messages.
The Maine Event
In even more book festival news, the Bar Harbor Book Festival, which was organized by author Carrie Jones (Need), also took place earlier this month in Bar Harbor, Maine. The event featured readings and several workshops; more than 25 authors were in attendance, including the three festively attired children’s book authors seen here: (l. to r.) Erin Dionne (Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies), Deva Fagan (Fortune’s Folly) and Megan Frazer (Secrets of Truth and Beauty). The writers spoke on a panel entitled “Creating Strong, Unconventional Female Characters in YA and MG Literature.”
