I LOVE doing book events!
Do you have questions? I have answers…
What is your ideal age range? I’ve presented to pretty much all ages from pre-K to college students and beyond.
Where do you present? At bookstores and schools across the country, through educational organizations like An Open Book, at book festivals like the Texas Book Festival and Brooklyn Book Festival, and also museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in Saratoga, NY. In short, pretty much everywhere.
What’s your whole song and dance? I love to talk about all the books I’ve made and how much fun it is to be a writer and artist. I’ll generally focus on my newest book which right now is I AM THE MOUNTAIN. As a big part of this book about landscape painting, I love ending the presentation with a big painting we all make together.
Wait, did you just say we all paint together? Exactly! I’ll bring kids up one by one and we’ll work together to paint our own version of The Mountain from my book. It’s a lot of fun. Here are some results from a school in Ithaca, NY:
Do you do other workshops? Sure do! My book WHAT IS COLOR? is all about how color is made. Think color stories like: how to make red from crushed up bugs, purple from sliced up sea snails and yellow from… cow pee. Beyond reading from my book, the workshop side of this can take on many formats depending on what makes sense for your venue. For The Met, I developed coloring sheets that related to art I collaged into WHAT IS COLOR? along with art in their collection. (I’ve also done versions of this for The Tang, The Texas Book Festival, The Thomas Cole Site, and more.)
For some events, we mixed up color using non-toxic Veggie Baby pigment packs. (That’s not the only brand that does this, it’s just an easy one to source.) I’ve also had students grind up real pigment like cochineal bugs or (my personal favorite) stomp on grapes to make a purple inks that oxidizes right in front of your eyes!
What do you charge? Generally speaking, for a full day of up to three presentations/workshops and one small group meeting I charge $2,000. For one presentation/workshop and some kind of small group meeting, it’s $1,000.
What about selling books? Yes please! This is very important to me and I love when we can coordinate book sales through a local independent bookstore. It will be my pleasure to sign, dedicate, and doodle my dog Waldo in every book.
Will you draw (or paint) live? Of course! I love it when I have an easel to draw things like my dog Waldo for kids. I also have been known to paint fish for what are generally speaking more grown-up events like the cocktail hour during a fundraiser.
What about virtual events? I’m happy to do these too, but in-person are my favorite and that’s what I prefer these days. That said, I’ve done a lot of virtual presentations and even made a comic in The New York Times all about it:
Will you wear some kind of costume? Maybe! I’ve been known to wear some pretty bright colors these days. (How could you not after making a book all about color!?) And when I’m doing events for my AstroNuts series along with co-creator/father-in-law Jon Scieszka we tend to look like completely real fully-official NNASA pilots.
Did you get to present to your own kindergarten teacher’s class who was still teaching THIRTY YEARS LATER? Yes I did! Here’s me returning to Mr. Johnson’s class at Lafayette Elementary School in DC. (We were laughing too much to take a non-blurry photo.)
