In Brief: February 9

Illustrator Peter H. Reynolds gave writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal a kiss at the recent launch party for their picture book Plant a Kiss (HarperCollins, Dec.) at the Blue Bunny Bookstore in Dedham, Mass., which Reynolds co-owns. The pair is standing in front of the store’s Kissing Booth, which offered Hershey Kisses, stickers, and stamps for children. Plant a Kiss, in which a kiss that a girl plants yields a bumper crop of kisses that she shares freely, will be featured at story times at Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country on Saturday, February 11.

Adult author Ann Hood just finished a five-city book tour for The Treasure Chest, her first series for middle-grade readers, in which two siblings travel through time to meet various historical figures. The series launched with Angel of the Battlefield and Little Lion (Grosset & Dunlap, Jan.), in which twins Felix and Maisie meet Clara Barton and Alexander Hamilton. Here, Hood distributes copies of the books to the Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota County at an event coordinated by Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Fla.

Scott Starkey, a Long Island fifth-grade teacher and debut author, recently celebrated the release of his new middle-grade novel, How to Beat the Bully Without Really Trying (S&S/Wiseman, Jan.) at Book Revue in Huntington, N.Y. More than 200 people turned out for the event, including family, friends, and Starkey’s students. In the book, a self-admitted coward accidentally takes down the school bully at his new school, giving him a whole new reputation to live up to. Here, Starkey signs a copy of the book for a fan.