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Lots of hard work goes into producing the best school/library* events - hard work from the author/illustrator* and hard work from the organiser. Based on hundreds of different sorts of events over the years, and after learning more from my mistakes than successes, I thought I'd put together my top tips for each side.

(*I'll just say "school" from now on but I'll mean "school or library etc" and "author" will mean "author, illustrator or storyteller" - btw, see Sarah McIntyre's excellent post about authors/illustrators.)

Top Tips for Organisers

1. Before sending the invitation: choose your author because you genuinely want that author, not just any bod with a pen; investigate their website so you know what they do; work out your budget; get relevant staff on-side.
2. In your invitation, say you'd really love to invite them and what for; ask about fees and expenses; say what you are hoping for during the day (eg two workshops for Y4 and Y5 and a ten-minute assembly slot). 
3. During the conversation, make sure you are clear about year groups, audience size, timings, etc, but be as flexible as you can. The author will know what works for her/him and you'll do no one any favours by making an author jump through hoops if that authors doesn't jump through hoops. 
4. Discuss bookselling. Some authors prefer to bring their own books to sell; others prefer you to use your normal supplier. (Note that authors earn very little per book, so this does not make much difference to income, but we like to foster bookselling, for many reasons.) Don't forget to build time into the day for this.
5. Ask the author in advance what support they need on the day: Being collected from station? Or directions. Lift/taxi back to station? //  Coffee etc on arrival? Other food during the day? Time-out?  //  Technical equipment. (Powerpoint presentations are always best sent in advance and set up ready.) Any other equipment?
6. Well before the event, brief all relevant staff and generate excitement. Relevant subject-teachers should know about the author and have read some of their works, and class or subject-teachers should brief pupils, get them excited and have them prepare interesting questions.
7. If you're having bookselling, make sure every child who wants to buy a book can. In practice this means sending a letter home and somehow making sure it gets there. There is little more upsetting for an author than carting dozens of books around, or expecting a bookseller to, and then no one buying one because a) time was not set aside b) book-selling was not advertised and c) money did not appear.
8. Always introduce the author to each audience in a positive and upbeat way. "Today we have a famous author..." is a great way to boost the spirits of an author facing a class of kids who really don't know who he/she is. It boosts the audience's spirits, too.
9. Make sure the author's books are in the libraray. It's fantastic to arrive in a school and see a display about us: could you get selected pupils to make one?
10. Follow up: for the event to have the most effect on the pupils, the following equation is the only one to go for: preparation + good event + follow-up = great event + long effect. So, get pupils to write about or respond to the event in some way. What did thy like about it? What did they learn?

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Exactly a week ago, I was privileged to launch the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland (I needed to take a deep breath every time I said that!) in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. In case the title doesn’t make it clear, it’s the libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge, in Scotland, sponsored by Tesco Bank. I was also privileged to also launch the local Summer Reading Challenge in Dundee two days later.

Launching the Tesco Bank Summer Reading Challenge Scotland

This year’s theme is Mythical Maze. And there couldn’t be a better theme for me – I write collections of myths and legends, I write contemporary adventures inspired by old myths, and one of my books even has a Maze in the title.

So that’s probably why I was asked to launch this year’s theme and challenge in Scotland. (And yes, I know it seems a bit early to all of you south of the border, but we grab summer earlier up here in Scotland, so the schools are already out and the libraries are already challenging kids to read books during the holidays.)

The launches were all positive and smiley. I met kids who had done previous challenges and were keen to do it again (which was great) and I met kids who had never done it before but were keen to give it a go it this year (which was even better.) So I had hoped to post a really cheerful blog for you all about summer and reading, with these wonderful illustrations by Sarah MacIntyre.

With lovely librarian Ruth in Dundee, and a dragon behind us.

But when I posted pictures of me with posters and books and dragons and kids online last week, someone who had been involved in a campaign that I supported to keep their local library open, a campaign that sadly failed, contacted me to say, this is lovely, Lari, but what about the kids who don’t have a local library any more? 

And I didn’t have an answer. Sad face emoticons don’t really do it.

The Summer Reading Challenge brightens up and invigorates libraries all over the country and allows them to run fun family-focussed events. The different themes every year make reading relevant and exciting to lots of different children. Kids get involved, families get involved, authors get involved. It’s a brilliant scheme. Well done the Reading Agency for organising it, and Tesco Bank for supporting it in Scotland. But it can’t reach every child, because not every child has access to a library.

And perhaps that’s the real challenge for all of us.

I had intended to write a really cheerful summery sunny post for all you Awfully Big Blog fans, but the shadow over it is that even the best things we do with books can’t and don’t reach everyone. Not until we make sure every single child has access to a library.

So clearly my challenge is to get away from that dragon breathing down my neck and take up my sword again on the subject of library closures.

In the meantime, have a fun summer, losing yourself in mazes and finding new myths!

(Lari is now away polishing her sword…)

Lari Don is an occasional library campaigner, and also the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website 
Lari’s own blog 
Lari on Twitter 
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Lari on Tumblr

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School finally ended. I took a week off to empty my brain of all things MICA and am now ready to wrap up this book. My plan was to finish et the end of the semester, but like a few of my students, I fell shy of my original goal by about three pieces. Those that follow me on facebook know how excited I get about my students and their work. My Advanced Book Illustration class ended with a bang with their end of semester reading to students at the Enoch Pratt Library. What a treat! You can see a few pics from that day on the MICA blog.

Since school ended, I read Matthew David Olshan’s “Marshlands“, an allegory of the excesses of empire. I liked the story and felt that Matthew did a wonderful job of painting the portrait of life in the desert marshes. I did feel that there was an emotional distance from some of the horrible punishments inflicted upon the inhabitants of the land. Some of the described tortures hit hard, but there was still a calmness in the reporting. I wondered after I read it, if that was the reason I was able to read it so quickly. I never needed any distance from the story, and with the backward story structure, my interest was held throughout. 

The structure was a little disorienting at first. While reading it, I was lost and knew that the experience of reading it would be akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle…which bothered me a little at first, but again, the visuals of the story wer
e so rich that it stayed with me. I do enjoy stories that make you wait for answers later. I don’t enjoy being spoon fed details from beginning to end.

I am now finishing “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. It is mesmerizing, but pretty taxing. In contrast to Olshan’s calm and matter-of-fact telling of Marshlands, Diaz’s storytelling is full of colorful language, historical footnotes (still told in a conversational tone) and current cultural references that crack me up, but also wear me out. It’s a sad sad story of one Dominican family and how they came to continue their lineage in the US showing us what it meant to live in the time of Trujillo and how long-lasting and far-reaching his dictatorship was. Diaz intersperses the story with Spanish phrases (that make me wish I paid more attention in Spanish during high school). Fortunately, my Spanish is decent enough that I can keep up without having to translate too much, and most of the phrases are easily understood in the context.

Next up, I will read “This One Summer” by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki. I plan to digest some NK Jemisin and Danzy Senna on the recommendation of Deb Taylor. I also want to reread “The Summer Prince”, another story that had me disoriented at the beginning, but which I fell in love with completely by the end.

As for my own books, well, I am finishing one project and then beginning another, both written by other authors. After that I will begin work on my first story where I am author and illustrator. This summer, alongside my making and reading, I will write as well. No ideas are bursting forth at the moment, but my mind is too focused on current projects to allow any other story ideas to bubble up. I am sure that once I finish this book, my mind will relax a bit.

Oh! I do plan to get out and about in July. I will head to Maine with my mom and Deb Taylor to visit Ashley Bryan and The Ashley Bryan Center in the first week of July and after that, I will head to Seoul to visit with Taeeun and work on sketches for the next book. So, big plans ahead.

What are you reading this summer?

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Yesterday I read PLEASE, LOUISE aloud with students of The Wilkes School at Grace & Saint Peters and Midtown Academy. It was an enchanting afternoon sitting under the stars of Enoch Pratt’s Night Room chanting aloud the text from PLEASE, LOUISE. After we read together, I shared a bit of my journey as a young reader and artist along with a conversation about where ideas come from and how long it takes to make a book. And of course, there were plenty of questions that followed. At the end, I did a live draw of Patrick, a second grader I believe. Unfortunately, though, most of the students didn’t think that I nailed his likeness. Tough crowd ;-). Afterward, I signed about 60 books and gave away posters and bookmarks to all of the students who attended. What a great celebration of PLEASE, LOUISE and the power of reading!

A SUPER THANK YOU goes to the amazing Deborah Taylor, Coordinator of School and Student Services, who graciously offered her support of this launch and a second super THANK YOU to Dr. Carla Hayden, who provided each child with their very own  copy of Please, Louise. Dr. Hayden believes that children should not only have books available at their neighborhood library, but that they should also have books in the home. I concur! Thanks also to Selma Levi, for all of her support and for sharing the space with us!

Exchange of the day:
After passing out books to everyone at the beginning of the presentation, one young man just couldn’t believe his luck.
Him: “I can keep this?”
Me: “Yes, it’s yours.”
Him: “FOREVER?”
Me: “Yes, forever.”
Him: “Whoa.”

Special shouts out to the two big kids against the wall, literary homies, Mathew Olshan, and Jonathan Bean who came to show their support!

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No, not visits from dead authors. I mean seeing author events from the other side, the side that's not the author's side. And not from the audience's side, either. From the event organiser's side.

I was thinking this the other day, after writing another blog post about organising author events, which was aimed at organisers. It struck me that sometimes we - the people giving the talk - spend a lot of time working to make sure that the audience has a beneficial experience and also a fair amount of time afterwards fretting about whether we've been given coffee, treated well, introduced properly, paid sufficiently, respected. Those things - how well we prepare and how well we are looked after - are very important to the overall experience of not just us, but our audience, because if we are relaxed and positive we are likely to do a better job. But they are far from the whole story and we may have become blind to something else important and useful.

How about we walk a mile in the shoes of the event organiser? I'm not talking about stealing their shoes, though if they were gorgeous I might well be tempted. I'm talking about looking inside their heads, properly, sympathetically, and then using what we find there to help create a really good event, one that is not only great for the audience and us but great for the person who bridges the void between the audience and us, person who can make a real difference: the organiser. Because just as the event is better when I'm happy, the event is better when the organiser is happy, too.

Let's call the event organiser Mary. (This is not code for "I'm thinking of an actual person called Mary but let's pretend I'm not." As far as I can remember I don't know a Mary who has ever organised an event for me. It's just a name, and a very nice one.)

Mary may be nervous about meeting us. This is apparent from phrases we often hear Mary use when introducing us to people, such as "real live author" or "famous author", or from her high-pitched laugh or her exasperated voice as she tells a group of kids, "I told you five times that the library would be closed at lunch-time - we have an  author visit." To Mary, we are not just a stranger, we are a stranger who has been dominating her emails/work/life for a few weeks or months; we are a stranger who may be strange - and often are; we are a stranger who may wreck her day and reputation by delivering a bad event; we are a stranger whose services take up some of her department's precious money; we are a stranger who may actually be "famous"; we are a stranger who may be judging her and leaping to wrong conclusions about her.

Mary's nerves may also be apparent from the fact that she forgets to introduce us, or introduces us badly, or says, "This is Nicola Morgan, who needs no introduction." She may genuinely think I need no introduction. I do very need one, because without one I feel inadequate, but Mary doesn't know that. She just wants to get the hell off the stage and back into the audience. I had one organiser once who was so nervous that she forgot my name entirely, at the very moment when she said, "I'd like to welcome..."

Mary has other things to do than my event. My event is not actually the most important thing in her life. It may well be the most important thing of that week, possibly even longer, but it's not the only thing she's worrying about.

Mary has no idea what I'm feeling. She has never had to "perform" in front of a large audience of 14year-old strangers. She probably thinks, if she thinks about it at all, that because I've done it for years I am totally relaxed. She would almost be right, but it's that "almost" that's crucial. She certainly doesn't know that there are several innocent things she can do which will topple my equilibrium. Years ago, before I was published, I had to organise an author visit to my daughters' school. I'm cringing as I think about how little I understood what those "famous" authors were thinking or how cack-handedly I treated them, but I know that I was wrapped up in my own stress.

Mary is worried that she might have forgotten something. She's made a huge list on the back of her repeat prescription form, but, although she knows she's done everything on the list, apart from order her repeat prescription, she's still worried she might have forgotten to put something on the list in the first place. Which is worrying.

She is also worried that George is going to do his mad-March-hare-crazy misbehaving thing again and she is particularly worried because she's just noticed that George is sitting next to Michael, which she'd expressly asked the teachers to make sure didn't happen, not least because Michael is supposed to be leaving early for his anger management class.

She is not only worried: she is also excited. She has a lot invested in this day. She had to bid for the funding and she's going to have to justify the outcomes. She really wants it to go well. She wants the pupils to be inspired by the talk, library borrowings and reading interest to rise in the ensuing weeks, the teachers to feel it was worthwhile and me to be happy and impressed with the school, the pupils and the library and...and...she's studying my face as I arrive and I'm looking a bit tense and now she's worried that I've just had the experience of walking through the foyer while Year 9 were stampeding to lunch. Or meeting Shannon and Donna from Year 10, who she's pretty sure are waiting outside the Head's office. Because they often are.

So, Mary is nervous, worried and excited and that's a recipe for things not to be completely perfect.

How can we, the authors, help Mary and therefore help ourselves? In my view, it's simple, as soon as weve have recognised what Mary's shoes feel like to walk in. Here are my five tips:

1. Prepare Mary. Make sure that she knows exactly what we need, in advance. In my case, these needs are on my website, on the page which I have asked her to read, and can be summed up as follows: a) she (or someone) will give me an introduction which makes the kids feel they are going to have a great event b) the kids will have been prepared and at least some will have looked at my website and thought about questions c) a few minutes of peace and quiet just before an event and between events. That's all. If Mary knows that, she can stop a whole load of her worrying.

2. Remind Mary. Mary may have forgotten everything in point 1 above, so remind her a couple of days before the event.

3. Forgive Mary. Because you have walked in her shoes and noticed that they are a bit leaky in wet weather and not really as comfortable as they could be. Especially the bit pressing on the toe that the pile of books fell on last week.

4. Smile at Mary. Smile at everybody you meet, even George and Michael and Shannon and Donna. Smile when you arrive. Smile when you shake Mary's hand. Smile as you walk with her to the library and after she's told the kids yet again that the library is closed because there's an author visit. As the well-known saying almost goes: "Smile and Mary will smile with you." And then everything will be all right and, if it isn't, smile anyway.

I honestly think point 4 is far more important than we might think. It's about first impressions, chemistry, putting people at ease. You're a bit anxious, but Mary is more anxious; take control of the situation; don't be a victim of Mary's anxiety or your own - cure it with a smile. Even if Year 9 did stampede all over you on their way to lunch and you met George on a mad March hare crazy day and Michael when he'd forgotten his medication and Shannon and Donna when they were just being Shannon and Donna. George, Michael, Shannon and Donna are probably nervous, too. And Mary. Besides you get to go home and not come back; they don't.

And you have chocolate in your bag. Because that's the fifth tip: Have chocolate in your bag.

You could even share it with Mary.

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The sun was streaming down when I arrived at Harrogate library, and I feared all my punters would have decamped to the Valley Gardens. But no: every seat was taken in the lovely events room.

I was there to talk about my latest book, and I was welcomed by a very keen group of child readers. Some of them had already researched the book; others asked penetrating questions about my own childhood reading: “Which Narnia book is your second favourite in the series?” They all did extremely well on my Rascals and Tearaways In Children’s Literature Quiz (sample question: Who was it that sailed away to where the wild things live?) We shared writing tips, the parents chuckled amiably, the powerpoint worked, my tea was hot and sweet...



This lovely event was part-hosted by the Harrogate Children’s Book Group – part of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups (FCBG). This in itself gave me a warm feeling – for when I was an unpublished writer, and knew no other writers, and very few adults interested in children’s books, the FCBG was very important to me.



The FCBG is, as its name suggests, a federation of local groups. Some run author events, others discussion groups for adults: all of them foster a love of children’s books. They come together at their Annual Conference, publish a magazine Carousel , and also run the Red House Children’s Book Award, the first Book Prize to be awarded on the basis of what children themselves actually think about the books. Its child judges early recognised the quality of authors like Anthony Horowitz and JK Rowling, who went on to become household names.

I initially joined FCBG as an individual member, because there were no local groups close by – which at least meant I could get Carousel magazine, read the interviews and the reviews, and feel in some small way part of the world of children’s books. Later a group started close enough for me to get involved. We hosted events with authors such as Chris de Lacey and Jonathan Stroud, and I even helped out at a Jacqueline Wilson event: she wasn’t yet Laureate but she was already Royalty in the Children’s Literature world, with a stunning frock and feather boa, oodles of charm, and a whole team of minders to manage her queues of fans.

3 Comments on THANK YOU, FCBG - Emma Barnes, last added: 12/9/2011

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adele said, on 12/9/2011 3:14:00 AM

Yes, indeed, the FCBG is a wonderful organization and very much deserves the Eleanor Farjeon Award it has just won. Terrific. Nice to read about it, Emma.

Emma Barnes said, on 12/9/2011 3:41:00 AM

Thanks Adele.

One of the things I liked about Anne Wood's interview on Desert Island Discs was that she said she wanted parents and children to have fun together with stories. She didn't want to make parents feel guilty or anxious - she wanted to them to enjoy themselves. And that's what is sometimes missing from all the initiatives around literacy and reading. If children find the books they really enjoy they can have so much fun...

Lynda Waterhouse said, on 12/9/2011 4:38:00 AM

Thank you for this post. You have reminded me to renew my subscription to Carousel.

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