Last weekend we had the honor of being asked to do a reading at the Chestertown Book Festival.
We were delighted to learn that the event would be held in the back room of Bookplate, where we had our first-ever public appearance almost seven years ago.
Notice the strollers out front, announcing the presence of their passengers like a platoon of Harleys outside a dive bar.
We got there early to set up, and, to our surprise, there were already three fans sitting there expectantly.
The reading was a double-billing. First up was painter, illustrator, and sometimes author Marcy Dunn Ramsey, who was reading from her impressive body of work.
We are great admirers of Marcy’s books, and she is a great supporter of ours. In addition to reading her books, she gave the kids a glimpse inside her process, showing a marked-up manuscript with sketches, draft illustrations, and finals. The image below is from her book about nests. (As you can see, even humans make nests sometimes.)
After Marcy was done, we took the stage. We gave the kids a little background on who we are and how we work together.
And then we read a few books, including The Girl With Frogs in Her Ears, Gorillas in the Kitchen (Spencer’s version), Archipelago, and The Imaginary Dragon while projecting the images on a screen behind us. This gave us the comforting illusion that the kids were admiring our hairdos.
Well, Robbi’s hairdo, anyway. I’m just self-aware enough to know that there’s nothing special going on atop my head.
The kids were great. They listened (for the most part), sat still (for the most part), and were wholly willing to join us in pronouncing all of the five-syllable words we threw their way (can YOU say hypsilophodon?).
After we were done reading, the kids spent some time browsing our wares. We signed a few books and added a few new subscribers to the mix.
Thank you, Chestertown Book Festival, for giving us a chance to share our stuff with local kids.
Thank you, local kids, for laughing at all the right places and making us feel good about ourselves.