Further Adventures in Author Stalking

Those of you who actually read my blog (and I guess, if you are reading this now, than I am talking to you) may remember that I wrote about a forthcoming book by the great Lemony Snicket and the Caldecott award winner and honoree Jon Klassen called The Dark.

If you follow me on Facebook, you'd know that Mr. Snicket's representative Daniel Handler and Mr. Klassen were at Hicklebee's this morning and so, therefore, was I.

They presented a slideshow in which they showed pictures from their childhoods and some of the things they've done in their lives before they collaborated (a word which here means 'worked together') on The Dark.  Mr. Snicket's representative explained that while Mr. Klassen wasted his childhood playing on swings and looking at pictures, Mr. Snicket was busy doing research.

Here, Mr. Snicket's representative is demonstrating how he learned to perform the trick pictured in the slideshow.  We also learned that while Mr. Snicket is not afraid of the dark, he is afraid of crabs, and his representative appears to be as well. 

To add a layer of difficulty to the reading, Mr. Snicket's representative tied a blindfold on to Mr. Klassen who continued to illustrate the reading blindfolded.  There was a surprise ending to this but I won't give that away here.  I'll share it at school next week.

Here is the dynamic duo signing my books (one for me and one for Marshall Lane). 

This one proves that I was there.

If you would like the opportunity to meet Mr. Klassen and Mr. Snicket or his representative, depending on who shows up, they will be at the Burlingame Library tomorrow at 4.  It's about a 45 minute drive from here so if you leave right after school, you should be there in plenty of time.  I highly recommend you do this.  Especially if, like me, you love books and you like friendly and funny authors and illustrators.

All Hallows Read

So I don't think it's any great secret that Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors. Here is a picture of him (which I took from his blog) having ice cream with one of my other favorite authors Daniel Handler. Because he is one of my faves, I read his blog and follow him on Twitter. This past week, Mr. Gaiman suggested that Halloween should be a book giving holiday, but not just any kind of book, specifically scary books! You can read about his idea here on his blog.

I think this is a marvelous idea! One of my favorite scary books from when I was a kid was 'Tales for the Midnight Hour' by J. B. Stamper. This was a collection of scary short stories that were great for reading out loud during sleepovers or campouts, especially if there were younger kids around! Muahahaha! I don't know what ever happened to that book, not many of my books stayed with me from childhood. To my delight several years ago, I found an old beat up copy of this very same book on the paperback rack of my own Marshall Lane Library! Oh joy! I checked it out right then and reread the whole thing. The stories are not as scary as they once were but they brought back a lot of memories! I love how in so many of the stories people are driven insane from fear. That was my favorite outcome. Anyway, in the spirit of Book 0r Treat, I'm making 'Tales for the Midnight Hour' my pick of the week and I'm going to order a few copies from Amazon to give away.

I hope this inspires you to give a scary book to a loved one this Halloween.

And tell me about your favorite scary books, did they give you chills? Did they give you nightmares? Were you afraid to look under your bed?