An Author Joins Us: Jarrett J. Krosoczka of the Lunch Lady Series

Instead of our usual Friday Random Links post, we are so excited to be a stop on Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s blog tour! This is our first blog tour ever and the fact that our guest is an author we love makes it even more fantastic! Jarrett has written numerous picture books (including my favorite, My Buddy, Slug) and the hilarious Lunch Lady graphic novel series. Be sure to check out his latest book, Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown, in stores now! For more about Jarrett, you can visit his blog, http://thejjkblog.blogspot.com/. And please join Jarrett on his next blog stop Monday, June 28 at http://bookingmama.blogspot.com/.

I’ve been very lucky to be the beneficiary of some incredible events with booksellers across the U.S. of A. I feel so lucky to have met and befriended so many creative and passionate people over the years. I decided to put together a list of my top 10 most memorable book store events, but then realized that there would be no way that I could narrow it down to just 10. But I don’t have photographic evidence of every event that I’ve ever done, so that has helped me narrow my scope. So here are my top 10 most memorable book store events (that were documented).

Of course, I also would never be able to place these events in a hierarchy, so these numbers are arbitrary.

1) My very first book signing ever was at Tatnuck Booksellers in my hometown of Worcester, MA. There was a big local-boy-done-good article in my hometown newspaper about the publication of my first book—Good Night, Monkey Boy. Because of this, just about everyone I ever knew turned up for the event—my first grade teacher, my dentist, grade school friends, you name it! My entire family was in attendance and approximately 300 people total were there to celebrate. (It definitely skewed my expectations of getting crowds into an event.) While I am sad that the original store no longer exists, I’m glad to report that it’s sister store, also named Tatnuck Booksellers, is open for business in Westborough, MA.

2) Alison Morris of Wellesley Booksmith came up with a great venue for her event in support of Punk Farm on Tour. In the neighboring town of Natick, there is a community organic farm located right next to an elementary school. The synergy was almost too good to believe. She brought a large crowd in, which isn’t easy when it’s not your hometown! Her willingness to host the event outside of the store made this event a hit! The pigs enjoyed the book, too.

(Not to be outdone, the chickens of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis, MN also enjoyed Punk Farm on a recent tour stop.)

3) In 2003, I was on the road promoting Annie Was Warned, a Halloween book. R.J. Julia, in Madison, CT, billed the event as a costume party/storytime. It was a perfect way to get kids and parents in the store and in a festive mood. Besides that, kids+costumes=AWESOME!

4) Part of my bit that I’ve been doing for the Lunch Lady events is to have people dress up as Lunch Lady and Betty and strike a super-hero pose, while I draw them. Of course sometimes, kids aren’t eager to get in front of crowds. (Let alone don wigs and yellow gloves.) When my young audience freezes, I volunteer adults in the audience. At Curious George Books, in Cambridge, MA, I selected two adults in the back row. Little did I know, they weren’t there with kids—they were tourists who wandered into the store. In fact, they had only been in town for a few hours at that point. But they were good sports and played along.

5) Word, in Brooklyn, recently hosted a Kids Graphic Novel Extravaganza. There certainly is power in numbers and joining graphic novelists Matt Phelan, Eric Wight and Chris Giarusso onstage for some improvisational drawing was a blast. When the two kids who volunteered to strike Lunch Lady super-hero poses began fighting on stage (this has never happened before!), I called upon Eric and Matt. So there were the authors of the Frankie Pickle series and The Storm in the Barn dressed as Lunch Lady and Betty. I owe them one!

6) I’m not sure I could come up with a adjective that could adequately describe the awesomeness of the Decatur Book Festival. And it’s awesomeness is due in great part to the great people at the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, GA. I wish every indie in the country could be hooked up to a book festival like the DBF. My wife and I were walking around the festival when, just outside of the Little Shop of Stories door, I saw two kids sitting on the curb, devouring copies of Lunch Lady. It was an amazing feeling. It’s what I imagine musicians feel when they first hear their song played on the radio.

7) I love going back to my hometown of Worcester, MA for events. When we launched the Lunch Lady books, we threw a big event at the Worcester Public Library. At this event, I had two very special guests of honor—my old lunch ladies, Jeannie and Betty!

8) When my wife, Gina, and I partnered with our local radio station to create the Meltdown, a family music and book festival, we knew we wanted to find a good indie to partner with. I had just had a few great events with the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA. Our friends at the Odyssey bring in the books and Gina and I program the authors who take the stage. Authors like Jane Yolen, Timothy Basil Ering, Anna Alter, Mo Willems, Scott Fischer, Dianne deGroat and Grace Lin have all read in-between performances by kindie bands (indie friendly kids’ bands). You should come next year!

9) Speaking of kids book events in unlikely places—how about a bar? Rock N Romp is a great series of kid friendly music events for parents to get out of the house and relive their days of going to see shows. They have chapters across the country, but I helped Rock N Romp kick off their Boston series.

10) Curious City is a children’s book consulting duo building creative marketing projects and outreach for authors, illustrators, and publishers. And WOW do they put together cool events. They’ve made a slug costume for their My Buddy, Slug event and they’ve gone (pardon the pun) hog-wild for Punk Farm. In 2005, they hosted an event where kids got to punk out photos of themselves, die their hair and to top it all off, there was a guy dressed as Sheep performing. Curious City also hosted a book event at the Strolling of the Heifers in Vermont. (Strolling of the Heifers is everything you think it may be and more!) The book event was called “Livestock!” and featured authors with farm themed books. In the Heifer parade was the Rock Van, as featured in Punk Farm on Tour.

And I’ll leave you with one final note on authors on book tour. When we’re all traveling, we often circle one another. We see each other’s signs and are always a few days off from getting to meet-up in the or that city. So we leave notes for one another as we go. This note was mysteriously left for me at an event a few years back. Wonder who it could be from . . .