Attendees at this morning's Children's Book & Author Breakfast will be served their share of treats, most notably a stellar lineup of speakers—Sarah Dessen, Kevin Henkes, and Brian Selznick—and master of ceremonies Julianne Moore.
Reigning National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and two-time recipient of the Newbery Medal, Katherine Paterson, will offer a special welcome to breakfast goers, and after the event will be signing ARCs of her new novel, The Flint Heart (Candlewick), 10–11 a.m., at Table 24. She will also be on hand to sign copies of the June picture book Brother Sun, Sister Moon on Wednesday at the Chronicle booth (4452), 9–10 a.m.
Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore will take the stage next, and when asked if she has a game plan, she says "No!" with a laugh. "I'm still fairly new to the book world, so this is very new to me." But she's confident that the impressive roster of authors she'll be appearing with will make her job easier. And there is at least one familiar face in the bunch. "Brian [Selznick] became a friend of mine when we worked on a Valentine's Day project for Save the Children," Moore says. "I'm a huge fan of Kevin Henkes's picture books, and I'm excited to meet him," she adds. "And I hear all great things about Sarah, so it's a pretty terrific group. I'm very happy to be a part of it."
Moore is at BEA with the latest picture book starring her spunky redheaded heroine, Freckleface Strawberry. "I never imagined I'd be writing children's books, and it's so fun to be on the third one," she says. "It's been nice for me that the characters can really sustain themselves." Moore
will autograph copies of Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever, illustrated by LeUyen Pham (Bloomsbury)
at a ticketed signing, 9:30–10:30 a.m., at Table 10.
Kevin Henkes will have his hands full at the conference, promoting both his spring picture book, Little White Rabbit (Greenwillow), and his just-released middle-grade novel, Junonia (Greenwillow). "I'm going to talk a little bit about my new book, but also about picture books in general and why I love them," he says, noting the wealth of discussion about the format recently. In Junonia, Henkes introduces nine-year-old Alice Rice from Wisconsin and chronicles her family's summer trip to Sanibel Island. "It's a quiet, interior story about that time of life when a child wants so desperately to be grown up, but they're not quite there yet," he explains. "It's about expectations. Alice is a particular child who likes things to go a particular way, and this book is about what happens when things don't go the way you expect them to."
BEA offers Henkes a welcome opportunity to meet up with colleagues and friends. "When I'm working, I'm alone in Wisconsin, so it's always nice to get out in the world," he notes. Post-BEA he'll be right back at it, working on "a few books for beginning readers, with a new mouse character." Henkes is signing copies of Little White Rabbit and Junonia this afternoon, 2–3 p.m., at Table 17.
What is Sarah Dessen's approach to her breakfast talk? She's not entirely sure yet, "other than being insanely nervous! It's my 10th book, and I should be used to this," she says. "But the breakfast is a big deal, and such a vote of confidence from the booksellers. And I'm in amazing company." Dessen plans to speak about how the perception of YA fiction has changed since she published her first book, That Summer, in 1996. "When I started, it was a much smaller pool," she says. "Lots of people thought that YA was about girls getting their periods, and that's it; they only knew Judy Blume. And thank God for Judy Blume! She helped me define myself for years," Dessen adds. "YA is reaching a different audience now. Starting with Harry Potter and then Twilight, more adults are reading YA; the lines have blurred. What I do is so mainstream now I don't have to explain it, which is a nice turnaround."
Dessen is promoting her new release, What Happened to Goodbye (Viking). In it, she says, "A girl decides to hit the road with her dad [when her parents' marriage ends], and in every town she lands in she creates a different personality—the joiner, the drama girl, the cheerleader—and even uses a different name. But in the latest town, she's finding it might not be so easy to cut and run." The book, confides Dessen, "came from the idea that when I was in high school, I wished it could be easier to be someone else." She is signing copies of her new book, 10–11 a.m., at Table 27.
For Brian Selznick, author/illustrator of the Caldecott Medal–winning The Invention of Hugo Cabret and a former bookseller, "BEA feels like coming home. I'm really excited." He'll be telling the breakfast audience about his September title, Wonderstruck (Scholastic). "It's about two kids who run away to New York City, one in the 1920s and one in the 1970s," he says. "The goal was to take what I learned from Hugo and expand on it." And expand on it, he did; Wonderstruck contains 100 more drawings than Hugo, according to Selznick, and clocks in at 608 pages. "I wanted to try to tell two different stories, one with just words and one with just pictures, and have them come together at the end of the book. It was a real narrative challenge." The result features Ben's story, set in 1977 and told in words, and Rose's story from 1927, told in pictures. "At the end," says Selznick, "when the two stories come together, they form a third story told in words and pictures."
After finishing Wonderstruck, Selznick did his own bit of time shifting and "jumped into a book about the making of the Hugo movie. I'm deep in that project right now." Breakfast attendees may hear him share a few words about the film, directed by Martin Scorsese, which is currently in production with a slated November 2011 release date. "I've interviewed 38 people, from Scorsese to the dog trainer to the stunt coordinator," says Selznick. "It's a unique look at how it got made." Selznick will have a ticketed signing of Wonderstruck ARCs this afternoon, 3–4 p.m., at Table 27.
