Isla continued her run at BookExpo yesterday, attending the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast and then a book signing in the morning. So far we only have a couple of photos from the event, but there are lots of fan-taken photos on Twitter, and I’ve embedded them below and added them as a ‘Moment’ on our Twitter account.
Marge In Charge will be available in the US on October 3rd.
• BookExpo – Children’s Book & Author Breakfast x5
The most prominent stars in children’s and young adult literature are coming together at ReedPOP’s BookExpo for one of the show’s biggest events – the Children’s Book & Author Breakfast. One of the most popular events at BookExpo each year, the 2017 Children’s Book & Author Breakfast draws over a thousand attendees for a morning of lively conversation with literary giants.
This year’s breakfast will be hosted by beloved co-anchor of NBC’s Today and chief legal correspondent for NBC News, Savannah Guthrie. Guthrie will discuss her new young readers’ book, Princesses Wear Pants, which was co-written with Allison Oppenheim and illustrated by Eva Byrne. She will be joined by actress Isla Fisher who unveils the first book in her new Marge In Charge series and Jason Reynolds (When I Was The Greatest) who will take the stage to talk about his three forthcoming works, YA Spider-Man novel Miles Morales and novels Patina and Long Way Down. Founding member of We Need Diverse Books™ Marieke Nijkamp (This Is Where It Ends) will talk about her new YA novel Before I Let Go and acclaimed author Jennifer Weiner will discuss her middle grade book Little Bigfoot, Big City.
Taking place Friday, June 2, the BookExpo Children’s Book & Author Breakfast will kick off the final day of the 3-day event, further establishing BookExpo as the must-attend destination for the publishing industry.
“Our Children’s Book & Author Breakfast is one of the most anticipated events of the show each year, attracting a large audience looking to discover breakout talent in the world of children’s and young adult literature. We have an amazing lineup of established stars and emerging authors who are sure to offer an unforgettable morning of conversation,” said Brien McDonald, Event Director of BookExpo.
This breakfast is proudly presented by Candlewick Press.
BookExpo 2017: Children’s Authors Say That Storytelling Saves Lives
Booksellers, Today Show host and Children’s Book & Author Breakfast host Savannah Guthrie “are putting magic and wonder and inspiration into children’s hands every day”—but at Friday morning’s breakfast, a lot of magic, wonder, and inspiration came from the authors on the stage with Guthrie: Jennifer Weiner, Marieke Nijkamp, Jason Reynolds, and Isla Fisher, who all emphasized the importance of storytelling in people’s lives—including their own.
Disclosing that she was “seriously honored and intimidated” to share the stage with the four others, Guthrie introduced booksellers to Penelope Pineapple, the princess in Princesses Wear Pants (Abrams), the picture book she wrote with Allison Oppenheim, a clinical psychologist; the book was illustrated by Eva Byrne. The inspiration for Princesses Wear Pants came from a discussion between the co-authors about how “this princess thing is written in their daughters’ DNA.” Guthrie and Oppenheim created a princess “everyone could get behind,” Guthrie said, “Above all, she is a do-er. If she were a grown-up, she would drink triple espressos.”
After giving a shout-out to librarians “who like to party,” Weiner explained that she started writing children’s books because she did not want her daughters to read her adult fiction, and so decided to “write something that did not have blow jobs.” She also, she said, wanted to write novels for children who are at an age when they “can’t figure out their hair, [and] can’t figure out their bodies,” and feel like “a monster.” Weiner’s middle-grade novel, Little Bigfoot, Big City (S&S/Aladdin, Oct.) is a sequel to The Littlest Bigfoot. The Littlest Bigfoot, she said, built the world in upstate New York where the three misfits, Alice, Millie, and Jeremy, live; Littlest Bigfoot, Big City is a mystery set in New York City.
Guthrie introduced Nijkamp, who lives in the Netherlands, as “a badass,” and Nijkamp demonstrated the truth of the description during her remarks. Nijkamp is the author of the YA novel Before I Let Go (Sourcebooks, Jan. 2018), which is about a young woman’s investigation of her best friend’s mysterious death. Nijkamp recalled that she once lived in a group home for “disabled teens” and that she has always wanted to tell stories, to write books. “Stories are safety nets, are anchors,” she said, “Stories make us feel less alone. Stories taught me that there is always something worth fighting for.”
Nijkamp also issued a call for more diversity in books, pointing out how few novels portray characters with disabilities in a positive light. “We deserve to have stories written about us,” she said.
Jason Reynolds, Guthrie said in her introduction, “is crazy about stories.” Reynolds, who is at BEA promoting three YA novels—Miles Morales: A Spider-Man Novel (Marvel, Aug.), Long Way Down (Atheneum/Dlouhy, Oct.), and Patina (Atheneum/Dlouhy, Aug.), a sequel to his National Book Award finalist Ghost—recalled that when he was a child, his family would visit relatives in South Carolina. His cousins and he would play outside all day, and when the sun got too hot, they would sit below a large tree and eat pecans. He compared that memory to his desire to tell stories that “provide comfort” to readers—just as those pecans in the shade of the tree sustained him when the sun bore down. “What if I get to be the pecan tree?” he asked, adding, “You wanna go out and save the world, start with your own house.”
The morning’s final speaker, Isla Fisher, who is best known for her television and film credits, said that she wrote Marge in Charge (HarperCollins, Oct.) for her three children, as well as for emerging and reluctant readers to instill in them a love of reading. The two children in Marge in Charge are based upon her own children. “Laughter is so important,” she said, explaining that Marge “the naughty babysitter” does all the outrageous things that children “wish they could do.”
Disclosing that “stories were a huge part of my childhood” in Australia, Fisher recalled moving often and having to go to new schools during her youth. She “hid” in books, she said. “Because when you are lost in the world of books, you are never alone.” Books, she added, “save us from depression and ignorance.”