We tend to think of writers as recluses who hole up alone with their muses, but that`s only part of their story. Sometimes authors who write for children are particularly eager to come out of hiding to meet their young audience. Many of them will be on hand at the Eighth Annual Printers Row Book Fair in the hopes of encouraging children to read and to write.
”As a child I never met a working author and I would have loved to because I decided to be an author when I was 10 and read `Little Women,`
” says Beverly Van Hook, author of the ”Supergranny” mystery series. Hook will be at the fair. ”It`s important for children to see that writers are ordinary, real people like their mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles and neighbors, and like themselves, so they can overcome some of their fears of writing.”
At the book fair, Van Hook will take children on a slide show mystery tour to discover some of the clues to good writing. For the first clue, they will see pictures of a hooded woman walking along the Mississippi, bending down to pick up a scroll and then taking it to a house where she drops it in the basket. It then appears in a basket that Van Hook is holding and a child in the audience will get to read it. The clue says, ”Read a lot, write a lot.”
Children`s authors will be reading aloud a lot from their own works at the fair. Peter Hannan, whose cartoons appear regularly in The Reader, will choose passages to read from one of his four books published in 1991. His works combine printed words, handwritten text and drawings: ”Sillyville or Bust,” ”Escape from Camp Wabbabarf,” ”School After Dark: Lessons in Lunacy,” and ”The Battle of Sillyville.”
When Hannan reads from ”Camp Wannabarf” he uses a gigantic drawing of the villain and has children from the audience come up and pin features on the face until it becomes a scary monster.
Illustrator Jan Gilchrist is also bringing along her son, 8-year-old William, to perform with her. With his cap turned backward he will recite
”Nathaniel`s Rap” by Lessie Jones Little from ”Nathaniel Talking,”
which Gilchrist illustrated. Gilchrist will discuss the inspiration for some of her illustrations in a book of poems by Eloise Greenfield called ”Night on Neighborhood Street.”
More Top Picks Best Electric Salt And Pepper Grinders For Seniors
”I grew up playing on the street, and there was a sense of camaraderie as though you kind of had a family inside and outside of the house,” she says, ”so I used warm colors that give a sense of feeling safe.”
James Aylesworth says he, too, will sing because his latest picture book
”Old Black Fly,” which runs through the ABCs, was written to be sung. He also says that children`s books aren`t just for children anymore. ”The best graphic art in our culture is found in children`s picture books, and there are wonderful stories and poetry so we take on all comers in the audience.”
That`s just what happened by accident at the book fair last year. When Jamie Gilson, author of ”Itchy Richard” and the upcoming ”Hobie Hanson at the Megadome Motel,” was about to speak indoors there was a terrible downpour and all sorts of people of all ages came in to keep dry. ”These were not necessarily people who would have ordinarly come in,” says Gilson, ”but we had a lot of fun because they were surprised to discover the wonderful concepts of children`s books.”
———-
Eighth annual Printers Row Book Fair, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; events for children throughout both days include programs by authors, illustrators and musicians, performances by the Big Nazo Puppet Theatre and story times with the readers of Channel 66`s TV program ”Read Me a Story,”
broadcast at 6:30 a.m. on Fridays. To capture segments to be used on the show, TV cameras will be on hand to film children saying, ”Read me a story” and just being their spontaneous selves; free. 312-987-1980.
To buy armloads of inexpensive books for summer reading, stop at the 34th annual Brandeis Used Book Sale. This is bargain weekend with all remaining books sold at 50 cents or less. Old Orchard Center parking lot, Golf Road and Skokie Highway, Skokie, 6-10 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday;
708-724-9715.