Children's Book & Author Breakfast Celebrates New 'Golden Age of Children's Literature'

The Friday Children's Book & Author Breakfast was a wonderful way to start the day, if the laughter and applause of several hundred booksellers and publishing professionals was any indication.

Libba Bray, author of the forthcoming The Sweet Far Thing (Delacorte Press), was emcee for the breakfast event, which was presented in cooperation with the Children's Booksellers and Publishers Committee, a cooperative committee of the American Booksellers Association, Association of Booksellers for Children, and the Children's Book Council.

Bray spoke of the benefits of being a children's book author ("I was the most popular mom around the kindergarten for a week"), and shared her list of the "Top 10 Things I Love About Children's Book People." Among them were "They know 'Spiderwick' isn't some weird candle store at the mall" and "They know to give a child a book is to give her the key to unlock her own heart."

After describing the plot of The Sweet Far Thing--in mime--Bray introduced Mo Willems, author of Knuffle Bunny Too! A Case of Mistaken Identity (Hyperion Books for Children).

The two-time Caldecott Honor winner taught the audience how to draw a cartoon pigeon, and said of his career as a children's-book creator, "The irony of my life is that it's spent trying to write incomprehensible things for illiterates."

Jacqueline Wilson, author of Candyfloss (Roaring Brook Press) and Children's Laureate in the UK for the last two years, said that children often ask her where her inspiration comes from. She said, "It wasn't my parents, it wasn't my teachers--it was all the wonderful books that I read."

Wilson added, "We're in the middle of a real golden age of children's literature--there's such a wide variety of books available." And she said that, like the audience, "I try to promote all literature, to show kids that reading is cool."

The first book that Daniel Pinkwater, author of The Neddiad (Houghton Mifflin Children's Book Group), bought as a child was a 1947 Detective Comics book featuring Batman. While perusing it, he realized he could read, "and I read everything in it, including the copyright information. And I knew I could read anything from then on." He added, "It's an honor to have readers like you."

Bray wrapped up the breakfast event with a mix of humor and praise for the children's booksellers and publishers in the room. "Now that Mo and Jacqueline and Daniel have touched this podium, I feel as if I'm absorbing their superpowers into my skin--and if I didn't have a fear of social ostracism," she said, pointing to the podium, "I would lick it."

When the audience's laughter died down, she added, "Thank you all for continuing to fight the good fight, for championing children's books... they change the world, and keep our hearts and minds open." --Linda M. Castellitto