Got Uke
Got Uke? No? No worries, your library does. Portland, Maine library card holders can now check out ukuleles and equally hip young adult books from the Teen Room of the Portland Public Library. Based on a madcap idea by Portland Public Library teen staff member, Michael Whittaker, local businesses Curious City and Moose County Music and Surf teamed up to create a Ukulele Lending Library. Four ukuleles were donated by Moose County and named by Curious City after teen books in the Portland Public Library collection. LEARN more about Curious City’s new program UkeLit! “This is...
Read MoreThe Good Braider Launched
When author Terry Farish was working at the Portland Public Library, she befriended a young man from the Sudan who told her “there is no word” when asked about his favorite family meal. “My mother will cook it for you,” he said. Terry Farish joined his family for a meal and from that day, began a journey of listening. Her new friends in Portland’s Sudanese community told of their tumultuous path from South Sudan to Portland, Maine. The cultural exploration that started as “there is no word” became a braiding of stories, experiences, and words...
Read MoreRecycle the Dead
Events are tricky. How to make the event experiential enough that readers want to share the event and book with friends and how to give them something to easily share with those friends. With the launch party for Mercy: The Last New England Vampire we nailed it on both fronts by recycling the dead. We invited back the lovely and haunting Emily who played (the dead) Mercy in the book trailer to stand beside a reproduction of her gravestone. We then we dared readers from the mist and fog covered cemetery launch party to step beside Mercy for a rather grave photo. See...
Read MoreMERCY: The Last New England Vampire Launch Party
Mercy, the last New England vampire, was pulled forcibly from her tomb in 1892. The teen novel about this horrific true incident and the present-day girl who uncovers it, was launched at the Eastern Cemetery in Portland, Maine under the appropriate cover of thick fog and gray drizzle. Per your usual event, the author, Sarah L. Thomson read and signed her novel… …but she did so while the ghost of Mercy walked the graveyard beyond her. Some readers were able to catch Mercy on film and… …to take on the visage of the dead...
Read MoreBrandify Those Giveaways
Every time you do an event (be it a signing or a launch party) make sure you have something to give to everyone, regardless of whether they buy or not. And, of course, brand it. Do you have to go to one of those fancy imprinting companies? Perhaps… But with an Avery label and a bit of lay out patience, you can make a very cheap giveaway. Jamie Hogan’s Seven Days of Daisy opens with Daisy gazing through a red magnifying glass. What a better giveaway for a book about summer exploration. Magnifying glasses? Yup. A quarter at U.S. Toy. Add a label and we...
Read MoreSeven Days of Daisy Beach Party
Author/Illustrator Jamie Hogan and Curious City created a journey into the Peaks Island picture book, Seven Days of Daisy (Down East Books). Families hopped on the Casco Bay Lines bound for Peaks Island. Stepping off the Ferry, they turned down the hill to Ferry Beach to Hogan’s launch party. We celebrated the picture book about island summers with book making (make your OWN Seven Days…) a rowboat picture booth (an image from the book)… …giveaways (the magnifying glass from the title page)… …icy...
Read More