Monday, September 13, 2021

Busy, Busy Week - Steve Sheinkin virtual school visit, Naomi Hirahara with Carole E Barrowman, Amy Timberlake talks to Lisa and Daniel, Brigid Kemmerer in person (registration required)

A family-friendly week of Boswell programming includes one virtual school visit (Sheinkin), one virtual daytime event that is also school friendly (Timberlake), one in-person YA event (Kemmerer) and one historical mystery with great cross-over potential for teens (Hirahara).
 
Tuesday, September 14, 2:15 pm
Steve Sheinkin, author of Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown
A virtual school visit - Open to the Public!
Register for this event here. 
Ask for your signed bookplate when you purchase a copy.

Boswell is pleased to host Newbery Honoree Steve Sheinkin for a virtual school event that we’ve made open to the public for everyone to enjoy. Sheinkin will give a presentation on Fallout, his new book, a follow up to his award-winning book Bomb, which takes readers on a terrifying journey into the Cold War and our mutual assured destruction. Great for ages 10 and up.

Kirkus Reviews
called Fallout "a gripping adventure that isn't over yet."  

This virtual school visit is open to the public and will last 40 minutes. If you're an educator who doesn't want to jump through the hoops to set up your own author program, just register for the event and you're set. Also great for homeschoolers and children's book lovers too. This is a great way for schools and even classrooms to experience our school visit program. 

Steve Sheinkin is author of nonfiction histories for young readers, including Born to Fly, Undefeated, and The Notorious Benedict Arnold. His accolades include a Newbery Honor, three Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards, a Sibert Medal, and three National Book Award finalist honors.

Tuesday, September 14, 7 pm
Naomi Hirahara, author of Clark and Division
in conversation with Carole E Barrowman for a virtual event
Register for this event here.
Ask for your signed bookplate when you purchase your copy.

Boswell presents a Thrillwaukee event with Edgar-Award-winning author Naomi Hirahara, with a stand-alone novel set in Chicago during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. For this event, Hirahara will be in conversation with book critic, mystery writer, and Alverno Professor Carole E Barrowman.


Hirahara’s eye-opening new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister’s death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II. The central mystery is based on a true crime, ignored by the police at that time, that terrorized the resettled Japanese Americans in Chicago.

Here's what Carole E Barrowman wrote about Clark and Division: "Hirahara’s beautifully written and deeply moving historical family saga is set in 1943 and focuses the lives of two sisters after their release from a Japanese concentration camp and their forced relocation to Chicago. Hirahara’s novel is an accomplished and important book about a time in American history that I felt privileged bearing witness to through this story. A perfect Book Club read." More of Carole's summer recommendations here.

Here's my recommendation: "Set during World War II, Clark and Division features a young Nisei woman resettled in Chicago with her family after a stay in a forced internment camp. Aki and her parents expect to be reunited with Rose, Aki’s older sister, but when they arrive, they learn she died on the tracks of the El. The police say it was suicide, but Aki is convinced she was pushed. Clark and Division has a dynamic heroine, a compelling plot, and lots of Chicago detail that would appeal to not just mystery fans but readers of Renée Rosen’s historical novels." (Daniel Goldin)

Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar Award–winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, including Summer of the Big Bachi, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Gasa Gasa Girl, and Hiroshima Boy. She is also author of the LA-based Ellie Rush mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, she has co-written non-fiction books such as Life after Manzanar and Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor.

Amy Timberlake, author of Egg Marks the Spot
a virtual conversation with Lisa Baudoin and Daniel Goldin
Wednesday, September 15, 2 pm
Register for this event here.
Ask for your signed bookplate from Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen.

Wisconsin native Amy Timberlake returns for a virtual Readings from Oconomowaukee event featuring the sequel to Skunk and Badger, her instant-classic odd couple story: Egg Marks the Spot! Roommates Skunk and Badger head out on a rock-finding expedition that becomes much more dangerous than they ever expected.

Schools and classrooms are welcome at this event. This is more of a conversation than a presentation, but we'll be sure to focus on kid-friendly subjects for this event. And we'll all discuss some of our favorite middle grade books for fall. 

Buried in the heart of every animal is a secret treasure. For rock scientist Badger, it’s the Spider Eye Agate he found as a cub, stolen years ago by his crafty cousin, Fisher. For Badger’s roommate, Skunk, the treasure is Sundays with the New Yak Times Book Review. When an old acquaintance, Mr. G Hedgehog, announces his plan to come for the Book Review as soon as it thumps on the doorstep, Skunk decides an adventure will solve Badger’s problems as well as his own. Together they set off on an agate-finding expedition at Badger’s favorite spot on Endless Lake. But all is not as it seems at Campsite #5. Fisher appears unexpectedly. Then a chicken arrives who seems intent on staying. Something is up!

In a volume that includes full-color plates and additional black-and-white illustrations by Caldecott medalist Jon Klassen, Newbery Honor author Timberlake takes readers on a second adventure in her series that’s been compared to Frog and Toad, Winnie-the-Pooh, and The Wind in the Willows. From Kirkus’s starred review: “Even as its often fantastical premise careens over the edge (and thrillingly so), the series’ titular duo keep it grounded thanks to Timberlake’s clear admiration for these characters and their quirks.”

Amy Timberlake is also the author of One Came Home, which received a Newbery Honor and an Edgar Award. She grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin, is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, and holds an MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Illinois.

Friday, September 17, 7 pm
Brigid Kemmerer, author of Defy the Night
Hybrid Event at Boswell Book Company - now in conversation with Jenny Chou
Register to attend this event in person here.
Register to watch this event virtually here.

Join us for a special, in-store appearance by Brigid Kemmerer, the New York Times bestselling author of A Curse So Dark and Lonely. Kemmerer joins us with the first book in her new, blockbuster fantasy series about a cruel prince, a corrupt kingdom, and the girl who will risk everything to bring it all down.

This is a hybrid event - it will be live and in-person and broadcast via Zoom webinar. Due to our limited in-person capacity for events, registration is required If you'd like to watch the event from home, click here to register for the Zoom broadcast. 

A rec for Defy the Night from Kemmerer's conversation partner, Boswellian Jenny Chou: "Tessa Cade, the heroine in Brigid Kemmerer’s exciting new fantasy series, is full of rage but also just enough hope to throw herself into danger for the survival of her country. Though she feels the weight of responsibility that a ruler should have, she’s actually an apothecary in a land whose citizens are dying of a plague. And the real rulers are hoarding the Moonflower leaves that offer an antidote for a few lucky citizens in the upper classes, leaving the poor to struggle and die. Helping Tessa is the fearless Weston Lark, a mysterious Robin Hood-like character, who appears at night. Together they make perilous trips to the royal lands to steal whatever Moonflower leaves they can find. Weston is keeping one really big secret though, one that changes everything when Tessa finds out. Defy the Night has plenty of adventure and heart-wrenching romance, but it’s the courage that both Tessa and Weston show when faced with deceit that really keep the pages turning."

And here's an enthusiastic writeup from Rachel Copeland, the Boswellian handling the tech for this event. It's due to Rachel that you can watch this event at home! Defy the Night, the Rachel rec: "In the kingdom of Kandala, people are dying, and Tessa Cade is risking her own safety to bring medicine to those who need it. With King Harristan and his brother, Cruel Corrick, in power, it seems as though only the elite will have a chance of surviving the strange sickness that's persisting throughout the kingdom. But all is not as it seems, and the enemy in the shadows might be the key to saving a kingdom. I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Kemmerer deftly balances the perspectives of her main characters while giving the right amount of weight to the issues of illness, poverty, and the improper use of power and authority. I will be waiting impatiently for the next book in this series."

Brigid Kemmerer is author of the Cursebreaker series and the contemporary young adult romances Call It What You Want, More Than We Can Tell, and Letters to the Lost, as well as paranormal young adult stories, including the Elemental series and Thicker Than Water.

More upcoming Boswell events here.

Photo credits:
Steve Sheinkin credit Erica Miller
Naomi Hirahara credit Mayumi Hirahara
Amy Timberlake credit Phil Timberlake

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