In Brief: April 19

New York City children’s bookstore Books of Wonder was bursting with talent this past Saturday when it hosted six authors and illustrators who won Newbery and Caldecott Awards and Honors earlier this year: Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka (A Ball for Daisy), Newbery Medalist Jack Gantos (Dead End in Norvelt), Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin (Breaking Stalin’s Nose), and Caldecott Honorees John Rocco (Blackout), Lane Smith (Grandpa Green), and Patrick McDonnell (Me... Jane). Seen here, the authors and artists sign copies of their books for attendees.

Reading Is Fundamental, the nonprofit literacy organization founded in 1966, has released a new PSA video to help launch its Book People Unite initiative, which aims to increase awareness of children’s literacy. With cameos from a variety of familiar faces – from Madeline and Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley to Curious George, Babar, and Clifford – the video also features a song produced by the Roots, with vocal support from Jack Black, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Regina Spektor, Portlandia’s Carrie Brownstein, and many others. For more information and to watch the PSA, which is a collaboration between RIF, the Library of Congress, and the Ad Council, visit the Book People Unite microsite.

The Manhattan Children’s Theatre has mounted an original production of The Lonely Phone Booth, based on the 2010 picture bookby author Peter Ackerman and illustrator Max Dalton (Godine). Adapted by Bruce Merrill, with music by Chris Alonzo, the show, about an old-fashioned New York City phone booth that proves it still has a place in the modern world, runs on weekends through April 29. Since opening its doors in 2002, Manhattan Children’s Theatre has produced some two dozen family shows, mining a mix of classic and contemporary literature from Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki Tikki Tavi to Mo Willems’s Knuffle Bunny.

While on tour in Chicago earlier this week, author R.J. Palacio, who recently published her first novel, Wonder, visited six schools and greeted fans at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville. At Anderson’s, she met an eighth-grader named Michelle (seen here with the author), who has a medical condition similar to the one that Wonder’s protagonist, Auggie, has. Michelle’s school aide had read the novel and suggested to Michelle’s mother that she read it with her daughter, knowing that they’d both relate to the story.

Bridge to Books in Pasadena, Calif., cohosted an event at Unwind, a yarn store in Burbank, on April 14. The occasion? A reading and signing with the author-illustrator team behind Extra Yarn, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. Yarn-ball cake pops were served, and Klassen brought markers and drew with the kids in attendance. Among the book’s most ardent admirers: Hannah Greenburg, who reads the story every night with her mother, Lisa, an Unwind employee. Pictured (l. to r.): Klassen, Greenburg , and Burnett. Photo: Thuy Lam.

Peachtree marked the release of Cynthia Levinson’s new book We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March with a party last Wednesday hosted by the author’s friend Ann Rosewater and held at the Atlanta home of Peachtree president and publisher Margaret Quinlin. The book is a nonfiction account of four children who were among thousands who protested the segregation of schools in Birmingham, Ala. Two of the four marchers profiled in the book spoke at the event; here, Levinson and marcher James W. Stewart hold up Three Musketeers bars—the candy bars got him through his imprisonment as a teenager for his part in the protest.