Have you ever heard of a man named Harris Burdick? I hadn’t, until I learned about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick — a picture book by Chris Van Allsburg. But the illustrations inside aren’t by Chris Van Allsburg, they’re from Harris Burdick… or so Chris Van Allsburg claims! Even stranger: each illustration has just a title and caption — so the reader can make up their own story to go along with it.

And in the newly released The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, 14 award-winning authors did exactly that. Just like school homework, the authors were assigned (or politely fought over) an illustration from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and then each author wrote a short story to accompany the picture.

Makes me wonder what kind of grades my 7th-grade Language Arts teacher would have given the likes of Jon Scieszka (author of the Time Warp Trio series) or Lois Lowry (Newbery Medal-winning author of The Giver — no big deal or anything)! Would she have given a gold star to Walter Dean Myers or extra credit to Jules Feiffer, or would she have marked up their papers with red pen?

Jon Scieszka, Chris Van Allsburg, Lois Lowry, and Linda Sue Park

Last week, Karen and I attended an event at a local Barnes & Noble, where authors Jon Scieszka, Lois Lowry, Chris Van Allsburg and Linda Sue Park graced us with their presence and talked about the new book!

For those who missed it, the authors are Sherman Alexie, M. T. Anderson, Kate DiCamillo, Cory Doctorow, Jules Feiffer, Stephen King, Tabitha King, Lois Lowry, Gregory Maguire, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar, Jon Scieszka, and Chris Van Allsburg… PLUS an introduction by Lemony Snicket.

I discovered a few things from being approximately 7 feet from the some of the coolest authors, ever:

1. It is impossible NOT to be in awe of them.

2. In a classroom: Jon Scieszka would be the class clown, Lois Lowry would be the sarcastic brainy one, Linda Sue Park would be the thoughtful poetry writer, and Chris Van Allsburg would be the science nerd. Who just happens to be really, REALLY good at drawing.

3. Linda Sue Park has an intense fear of worms, just like me!

As authors were selected to write for The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, the most coveted illustration was “the one with the nun” — which Lois Lowry got!

Jon Scieszka’s first choice was also “the one with the nun,” but in the end, he wrote a story for “Under the Rug” — and he had some interesting things to say about it:

Wish you were there? Check out more videos from the event on the Kidsmomo YouTube channel! Meanwhile, pick up a copy of the book and let us know which illustration most fascinates YOU!

— Nancy

Nancy knows that if it turned out to be a giant worm under that rug, she would totally jump onto that chair and by sheer will and fright, float away to meet up with that nun.

More about Nancy »

Btw, Nancy works at Barnes & Noble, but her job has nothing to do with events like these — or with this book in particular. Unfortunately.

Submitted by Jenna, Age 11 from Maine

Rating:

I first heard of this book when my teacher said she recommended it. But it looked kind of dumb, so I never did bother to read it. That is, until my teacher read it to my classmates and I. I loved it so much, I read it again by myself!

Knucklehead is a hilarious memoir by Jon Sciezka, telling of his childhood memories of living with his five brothers, Jim, Tom, Gregg, Brian, and Jeff. This book is full of funny memories and tons of photos. I really enjoyed the part when they brought the cat in the car with them and something hilarious happened. So you’re probably wondering what happened, right? Well, sorry, but you’re going to have to read this funny memior to find out!

In a recent podcast, I recounted a story involving a car ride, a candy bar, and group vomiting. Thankfully, it wasn’t my story, but a memory of author Jon Scieszka’s — I was just re-telling it after reading his fantastic book Knucklehead.

Well, I’ve discovered a video where he tells the story himself! Check out this interview he did for Scholastic’s Ink Splot 26 blog*. The story comes right after he explains why he started writing:

I’ll be honest here: If Jon Scieszka were a book that I was judging by its cover, I’d say Jon Scieszka’s “cover” looks like… a hedge fund banker. Or a fancy schmancy consultant. What kind of consultant? I don’t know. Something with numbers, I suppose.

What I’m trying to say (very poorly) is that he doesn’t look like someone who’d write the laugh-out-loud picture book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (which he did). So to come across a video of this serious-looking dude talking about vomit, it’s just… just… AWESOME! Especially the way he says “pecan nut log”— I think the fact he includes that little detail is a sign of what a genius writer he is. (Although, in all fairness to me, that was a detail I didn’t have.)

— Nancy

Nancy has plenty of puke stories of her own, but she’s been sparing everyone the gooey details… Or waiting for right time to bring it up. Mwahahhahha!

More about Nancy »

*Btw, full disclosure: I used to work at Scholastic, and Karen still works there. In fact, now she’s in charge of the website that the Ink Splot 26 blog is part of! She’s actually the one who told me about this amazing video — but she swears she was just being a good friend, not trying to promote her other website. I guess I believe her…

Which children’s book author grew up with a pet raccoon? Which one enjoyed reading cereal boxes as a kid? And which one participated in a mass vomit incident with his family? (Ick.) The answers are in our latest podcast, all about author memoirs and autobiographies:

  (12:51)
Download the MP3 (6.2 MB)
• “You little rascal!” — aka our mystery book revealed
• Chicken pot pie with Roald Dahl and candy with R.L. Stine —
• plus an author dream date from one of you!
• Our author memoir picks (Knots in My Yo-yo String by Jerry Spinelli and Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka
• An author memoir red from one of YOU (Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher)

Also, don’t forget: our new theme is books about royalty, as suggested by one of our kid followers! So send us a review of your favorite book about royalty and check out these books about royalty, fit for a king.

And for this special kid-requested topic, we’re extending the theme to three weeks and offering up:

• May 4th: a new Mystery Book Theater starring royalty, and funnily enough, an animal once again (I guess we love animals?)
• May 11th: a royal KidsmomoMo video
• May 19th: a regal podcast, if it may please the court

So stay tuned!

— Nancy and Karen

Last month, I reported that an all-start team of children’s book authors would be writing an online story together, called The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. Well, the first installment went up yesterday, and boy do I feel stupid…

I didn’t know that “Exquisite Corpse” is actually what you call it when someone writes a phrase on a sheet of paper, folds it over to hide part of it, and then passes it on to the next person to continue writing. This goes on until someone finishes the story, and then it’s read aloud.

So in fact, the “exquisite corpse” in The Exquisite Corpse Adventure is not the re-animated dead body that I expected, which surely would have made for a very exciting adventure. But don’t worry — the story hints that this exquisite corpse, although something else entirely, will still bring plenty of intrigue.

But enough lead-up… Check out the first installment of the story, written by Jon Scieszka, on the Library Of Congress website!

BONUS: One of the main characters is named Nancy!

— Karen