What's Going on This Week, Not Just at Boswell, But at Cudahy Family Library, Village Pub, Lake Park Bistro...Plus One Event Can't Go to Unless You are the Lucky School for Keir Graff.

Tonight, Monday, November 14, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Village Pub, 4488 North Oakland Avenue, we'll be with Bob Berghaus, author of The First America's Team: The 1962 Green Bay Packers.
Monday night's game with the Vikings begins at 7:30 CST, but in lieu of a tailgate party, perhaps the best pre-game show might be Journal Sentinel sportswriter emeritus Bob Berghaus at the Shorewood Village Pub, talking about Vince Lombardi's 1962 Packers. More on the Journal Sentinel Packers blog.

Our second event for Norwegian November is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15, 7 pm, at Boswell, co-sponsored by Outpost Natural Foods. Irene Sandvold, co-author of Gudrun's Kitchen: Recipes from a Norwegian Family joins us for a talk and signing. Part
cookbook, part immigrant story, and also family saga, we will have a little Norwegian sampling from Outpost.

And speaking of Outpost treats, I don't know if there is any left in the cold case, but on Sunday there was one of my favorites. Radicchio chicken salad, besides its titular ingredients, is tossed with celery, onions, snow peas, craisins and pecans in a slightly sweet champagne vinegar. It's ultradelicious and doesn't show up too often.

Also on Tuesday, November 15, we'll be helping the Cudahy Family Library for their event with Leanna Renee Hieber, author of Darker Still: A Novel of Murder Most Foul. This is Hieber's first foray (to my knowledge) into young adult fiction; she is better known for her adult paranormal activity. I like that Sourcebooks partnered up with Word in Brooklyn to get pre-signed copies out.

On Wednesday,  November 16, we are co-sponsoring not one but two events with Craig Thompson, author of the already classic Blankets, and the soon-to-be classic Habibi.  At 2 pm, he is appearing at MIAD's Todd Wehr Auditorium, 273 East Erie Street. This event is free and open to the public.

And then at 7, we're hosting a traditional in-store event at Boswell, also Wednesday, November 16. Thompson had a short stint at MIAD and a longer one at nearby Discovery World.  And may I super urge you to get your book signed? Thompson is said to do an amazing drawing/signature.

Thursday, November 17, is a kid-friendly evening with Kenneth Oppel, author of This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, this time at Boswell. Don't worry, I promise we are continuing to do our library readings. We just have so many other offsites going on that I needed a little rest, and comparatively, an in-store event is a rest.

In this story, the start of a series which plays off the original material, Victor Frankenstein attempts to create an elixir of life to stem off the grave illness of his twin brother Konrad. To make this happen, he and his adopted sister and their friend Henry must procure the necessary ingredients. Publishers Weekly calls Victor a "mad scientist in training" and sees This Dark Endeavor as "melodramatic, exciting, disquieting, and intentionally over the top."

And for all you Canada-philes, Oppel received the Governor General's Award for his Airborn series, and lives with his family in Ontario.

Saturday, November 19, 2 pm, at Boswell:
James King, author of Bill Warrington's Last Chance.
A young girl and her ailing grandfather set off on a road trip to California in attempt to bring together their fractured family. Booklist praised the story as "part road odyssey, part coming-of-age tale, Kings novel achieves the exact right balance of humor, redemption, and reconciliation."

Sunday, November 20, 6 pm, Lake Park Bistro: Patricia Wells, returns to Milwaukee for a special dinner in celebration of Simply Truffles.
There are still tickets left for a special Patricia Wells truffle dinner. $125 gets you a complete meal, tax, gratuity. There is one autographed book per couple. More on Carol Deptolla's Journal Sentinel blog. Phone number is 414-962-6300.

And then there's one event you can't come to!  We're doing a school visit for Keir Graff's first novel for middle graders, The Other Felix. The author has done some great school visits in the Chicago area and though I thought it would be hard to get an public audience for this first novel, pairing Graff with right school is a great idea.

Felix is an only child who lives in the big city in a tall building. I'm not sure, but I think it's Chicago; we're told it's not New York. His mom works in a hospital, and his dad is doing some sort of business project. They are both rather distracted, as parents can be in these sorts of stories.  This turns out to be problematic when Felix starts being taunted by Chase, a bullying new student who frames him for, in true "Fugitive" style, a crime he did not commit.

But Felix has an escape. What starts out as nightmares where he is transported to another place, woodsy, yes, but not exactly bucolic as there are monsters lurking about, turns out to be an escape when Felix meets, of all things, another Felix. This Felix has no parents about, but he knows how to cook and even do his own hunting. Things like shoelaces, on the other hand, just show up. Most of all, he knows how to fight monsters. And being The Other Felix, pretty much identical except for his lack of family and his clothing, he becomes a friend that Felix could use, and he might even be able to help him in his problems...if the monsters don't get them first.

Interested? Well, we're whetting your appetite for a futre appearance. I expect more great books for kids to come from Graff, in between his other careers, one of which is as a novelist for grownups. His most recent thriller is The Price of Liberty.