Meet the Authors
My son has always loved reading. In this photo, he’s not actually reading, a car ad caught his attention at a time when cars were his THING. He has always been a fanatical reader. I remember driving home from the library and he had finished a magic treehouse book in the car before we got home, a very short drive. This year though, our summer is missing something. Summer isn’t summer without the ritual of the midnight visit to the bookstore to await the release of the latest Harry Potter Book? I have happy memories of going with my son to these celebrations. I enjoyed having an excuse to let him stay up all night to read. This experience cannot be replaced, but a fun summer activity is to go out to your local bookstore and listen to authors reading from their books.
Last year, my son and I went to listen to D. J. MacPhale who wrote the Pendragon series. My son is a big fan of the series and was buying the penultimate book at the time. MacPhale, however, was almost in mourning because he had just finished the last Pendragon novel and was feeling the loss, plus the fact that we, the audience wouldn’t see the book for another 18 months didn’t help.
MacPhale told a funny story about how he had been telling a story at a previous reading about being contacted by the official British Pendragon association. During this previous reading he had done an impression of a snooty english woman, who was a member of this pendragon association. He told us how he felt so bad when the next person to ask him a question had been English. So, of course, being English I couldn’t wait to put him in that situation again and had to ask him a question. He was doubly mortified, yet amused, but the best was that we both succeeded in making my son laugh, quite a feat at 15.
A similar outing could be just the thing to encourage summer reading. Contact your local book store for details on which authors are on tour and visiting your local area.
Links
BookTour is a website that lists author appearances, book events and literary happenings near you.
Reading Rockets website has video interviews with many children’s authors
The best example I have seen of book tours online is Neil Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book. At each book store, Gaiman read a different chapter of the book and they have been compiled. The book won the Newberry award this year. How generous and what a treat for readers. Make sure your local bookstore knows about his latest offer, a chance to win a Halloween bookstore party hosted by Neil
To tap into kids interest in their ipods and mp3 players, don’t forget e-reader apps for the ipod touch include kindle, stanza plus the Barnes and Noble e-reader.
Check to see if your library has audiobooks for downloading to ipods. This can help reluctant readers get started with an author series. ITunes has some old time radio podcasts that would also be interesting for boys especially http://bit.ly/r8lTY
Summer Brain Fit is a 6-week series of online activities aligned with some typical outdoor summer fun that is intended to keep kids thinking and learning while enjoying summer.
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