bugs at BEA and other news...

It’s a busy week! 

If you work in publishing, you’d have to be a bug under a rock not to be aware that Book Expo is currently taking place at the Javitts Center here in NYC. This was the first year I participated in the children’s book art auction to benefit the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and was very pleased that piece Buggy Too, pictured above, fetched a pretty penny in addition to a nice home. 

This weekend, I’ll be dropping off some stuff for the “Picture This!” show at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Mass. If you find yourself in New England this summer, stop by for this juried exhibition of picture book illustration. Three of my pieces from World Rat Day, by J. Patrick Lewis will be on display.

And on my way home, I’ll be stopping off at my alma mater, Connecticut College, for an Alumni Author (and Illustrator!) book event. Any camels out there planning on attending Reunion Weekend? Come to the campus bookstore this Saturday, June 1st at 3pm for a signed copy of World Rat Day and/or Sylvia’s Spinach. 

Rizzoli, Rats and Raffs

On the heels of the big World Rat Day event at Rizzoli, I did a little traveling, so this post is over a week late. Still, I wanted to share a few photos—it was a fantastic turnout! Thanks to everyone who was there, bought books, and helped celebrate Poetry Month. And special thanks to the great people at Rizzoli—especially publicist Meg Parsont—and Candlewick for providing the bubbly and the big poster for the store window! Boy was my hand tired by the end, but in a really good way.

Rizzoli Bookstore - April 13th, 3–4:30 p.m.

Come celebrate the publication of World Rat Day with me at the legendary Rizzoli Bookstore this Saturday afternoon! 

At the Bank St. Bookstore - April 4th

On the afternoon of Thursday, April 4th (World Rat Day proper) I’ll be presenting World Rat Day to the after-school set at the Bank Street Bookstore on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Click here for details. If you can’t make it to that event, you can still celebrate World Rat Day with me at Rizzoli Bookstore on Saturday, April 13th. More information from my earlier post can be found here. In addition to reading some of J. Patrick Lewis’ wonderful poems, we’ll be drawing rats, and inventing our own holidays. Hope to see you there!

Signing at Rizzoli Bookstore, NYC - April 13th, 3pm

Happy [belated] National Pig Day! I hope you found a proper way to honor the swine this past Friday.

The release of World Rat Day is a little over a week away, and it has been getting some nice attention in print and cyberspace. But first things first...

On Saturday, April 13th from 3:00–4:30 PM, the Rizzoli Bookstore in midtown Manhattan is hosting a book signing for me. Here’s the announcement from their website:

To help celebrate National Poetry Month, award-winning illustrator Anna Raff joins us for this kid-friendly event in which she unveils a whimsical collection of poems and her illustrations commemorating such quirky holidays as Dragon Appreciation Day and International Cephalopod Awareness Day.

I know you’ll want to fill me in on how you celebrated the actual World Rat Day which is a few days earlier, so I look forward to seeing you there! For directions, click here.

In other World Rat Day news, the rats got a nice, visual shout out in the “Spring Children’s Books” issue of Publisher’s Weekly last week. To read the complete PW review, click here. And the book trailer has been featured on several illustration sites. If you still haven’t watched it, take a short 1-minute, 36-second break. I hope it puts a smile on your face.