In Brief: November 3

This past weekend, author Laura Numeroff (back row, second from l.) visited the Barnes & Noble in McLean, Va., as part of the “If You Give a Child a Book” promotion between HarperCollins Children’s Books, First Book, and the bookstore chain. During the monthlong campaign, which concluded on October 31, HarperCollins and Barnes & Noble each donated a book to First Book for every book in Numeroff and Felicia Bond’s If You Give... series purchased during the promotional period. In all, 60,000 books will be donated, meeting the campaign's goal. HarperCollins published the latest book, If You Give a Dog a Donut, on October 4.

German-born author Monika Schröder has been making appearances in support of her new YA novel, My Brother’s Shadow (FSG, Sept.), about a 16-year-old boy coming of age in 1918 Germany. The author traveled to Minneapolis/St. Paul last week, where she visited the Twin Cities German Immersion School and the Red Balloon Bookshop; seen here, she shows off a copy of a vintage Berlin newspaper that she used as a resource when writing My Brother’s Shadow. Schröder, who now lives in North Carolina, launched her novel with an event in late September at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, N.C.

Last week, Scholastic hosted a live webcast entitled Dear America: History Speaks, first in a series of three webcasts designed as a resource for students and teachers. Created in collaborations with the Library of Congress, the webcast featured a conversation with three authors who have contributed to the Dear America series: (l. to r.) Kirby Larson (The Fences Between Us), Lois Lowry (Like the Willow Tree), and Andrea Davis Pinkney (With the Might of Angels). An archived version of the webcast and additional resources for teachers are available at Scholastic’s Web site.

Author Patrick Ness ran the Dublin Marathon this past Monday, beating his personal best by 10 minutes. Ness ran to raise money for the Breast Cancer Campaign, in memory of author Siobhan Dowd, who died of breast cancer in 2007. In September, Candlewick published Ness’s novel A Monster Calls, illustrated by Jim Kay, which was developed from a book idea Dowd had started working on before she died. In a starred review, PW called it “a story that not only does honor to [Dowd’s] memory, it tackles the toughest of subjects by refusing to flinch, meeting the ugly truth about life head-on with compassion, bravery, and insight.”

Several members of the Kidlit Authors Club, a group of middle-grade and young adult authors who have joined forces to market their books and make group appearances, recently visited the Barnes & Noble in Neshaminy, Pa. Seen here are (back row, l. to r.) Cyn Balog (Starstruck; Delacorte, July), Ellen Jensen Abbott (The Centaur’s Daughter; Marshall Cavendish, Sept.), and Cynthia Chapman Willis (Buck Fever; Feiwel and Friends, 2009); and (front row, l. to r.) Alissa Grosso (Popular; Flux, May), Amy Holder (The Lipstick Laws; HMH/Graphia, Apr.), Jennifer Hubbard (The Secret Year; Viking, 2010), and Keri Mikulski (the PrettyTOUGH series; Razorbill, 2011).

Music helped inspire Tess Hilmo’s new middle-grade novel, With a Name Like Love (FSG, Oct.), so it’s fitting that music played a role in her October launch event at the American Fork Library in American Fork, Utah. The American Fork Children’s Choir (seen here with Hilmo and the choir’s director, M. Ryan Taylor) sang several songs at the event, including “Lead Me On,” an original song that Hilmo composed, which draws on her interest in Southern gospel music. (The song can be heard on the book trailer for the novel.) Set in 1957, With a Name Like Love is about the daughter of a traveling preacher who gets caught up in a local mystery in one of the towns they visit. Photo: James Samson.