Arts & Letters Live: BooksmART
Award-winning authors and illustrators for the young and the young-at-heart

David Macaulay, January 25, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Jonathan Stroud, February 1, 2009, 3:00 p.m.—St. Mark’s School
M.T. Anderson, April 5, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Linda Sue Park, May 3, 2009, 3:00 p.m.—Hockaday School
Robert Sabuda, May 31, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
Special Family Late Night: Mummies, Magic, and Mayhem with Judy
Schachner and R. L. LaFevers
Special Event with Sherman Alexie and Colson Whitehead, UTD
Conference Center
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David Macaulay
January 25, 2009

An early fascination with simple technology and a love of model-making and drawing ultimately led David Macaulay to study architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), though he vowed never to practice. After working as an interior designer and as a teacher, he began to experiment with creating books.

In 1973 Macaulay set off to France to work on Cathedral, which was published shortly thereafter. He then constructed a colonial Roman town (City, 1974), erected monuments to the pharaohs (Pyramid, 1975), dissected the maze of subterranean systems below and essential to every major city (Underground, 1976), built a medieval fortress (Castle, 1977), and dismantled the Empire State Building (Unbuilding, 1980). Five of these titles have been made into popular PBS television programs. Macaulay’s gift to readers of all ages is his ability to demystify the greatest architectural and engineering feats through his elaborate and witty show-and-tells.

Macaulay is perhaps best known for the award-winning international best-seller The New Way Things Work. The New York Times dubbed it “a superb achievement,” saying that “Macaulay sees the world with a writer’s grace, but with an engineer’s clarity.” His latest book, The Way We Work, took six years to create and tackles the most intricate machine of all: the human body. At this event, he will discuss various processes of the human body, explain why the Egyptians wanted to preserve their bodies, and share his theories on how they built the pyramids to house them.
Macaulay’s books have sold more than three million copies in the United States alone. His many awards include the Caldecott Medal (for Black and White), the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston to an outstanding contributor to science, and a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.”

“What began as a simple desire to better understand my own inner workings has become an opportunity to display both my wonder and gratitude.” —David Macaulay on The Way We Work

Before the Event
2:15 p.m. Join teen docents on tours of the Museum’s collections inspired by Macaulay’s books.

Selected Works by the Author
The Way We Work (2008), Mosque (2003), Angelo (2002), Building Big (companion to the PBS series) (2000), Building the Book Cathedral (1999), The New Way Things Work (Vol. 1, originally published in 1967) (1998), Castle (1997), Rome Antics (1997), Black & White (1990)

BooksmART booking for DISD students:
Dallas ArtsPartners can make funds available for DISD students to attend BooksmART events free of charge. DISD teachers should consult their Web site at dallasartspartners.org or call 214-520-0023.

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Promotional Partner:
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Jonathan Stroud
Sunday, February 1, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

St. Mark’s School of Texas
Decherd Performance Hall
10600 Preston Road
Dallas, Texas 75230

Jonathan Stroud is the author of the worldwide best-selling fantasy series The Bartimaeus Trilogy— a fast-paced saga set in a London ruled by a magical government. In a review of the trilogy, Horn Book Magazine raves, “Stroud is a masterful storyteller, balancing touching sentiment with humor, explosive action scenes with philosophical musings on human nature.”
In the first book in the trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand, the wisecracking, shape-shifting djinni Bartimaeus is summoned by a young magician, Nathaniel, and sent off to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the sinister Simon Lovelace. It was the winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor and the Lancashire Children’s Book Award. The remaining books in the trilogy, The Golem’s Eye and Ptolemy’s Gate, continue the saga and blend thrills, magic, wit, and wisdom. All three books have been New York Times best sellers.
While in Dallas, Stroud will discuss The Bartimaeus Trilogy as well as his forthcoming book, Heroes of the Valley (which will be released in January 2009). An epic fantasy thriller featuring murder, revenge, and a slightly diminutive protagonist, Heroes of the Valley combines Norse mythology and Stroudian genius in a thrilling and original adventure!
Jonathan Stroud was born in Bedford, England. Between the ages of seven and nine, he was very ill and spent long periods of time in the hospital and at home in bed. During this time, he fought boredom and frustration by reading furiously. He discovered that he enjoyed stories of magical adventure because they provided him with a complete escape, and around this time he fell in love with fantasy. He attended York University, where he studied English literature. Stroud worked as an editor of children’s books until 2001, when he devoted himself exclusively to writing. He lives in England with his wife and two daughters.

“Not since Gulliver’s Travels has a children’s writer managed to combine a thrilling tale of magic and adventure with such deliciously pointed comedy. . . . Stroud’s sinister world is imagined in baroque and energetic detail.”—Amanda Craig, The London Times

Selected Works by the Author
Heroes of the Valley (2009), Ptolemy’s Gate (2006), The Golem’s Eye (2004), The Amulet of Samarkand (2003), The Last Siege (2003), The Leap (2001), Buried Fire (1999)

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M.T. Anderson
Sunday, April 5, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

M. T. Anderson held jobs as a burger flipper, a department store cashier, a radio DJ, a classical music critic, and an editorial assistant for children’s books before making a name for himself as a writer. Since that time, his books have become New York Times best sellers and have garnered him wide critical praise for his intelligent, witty, and incisive style. In 2006 he received a National Book Award and Printz Honor for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party.
Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing chronicles the life of an unusual slave before and during the Revol-utionary War. Praised by Booklist as “a brilliant, passionate book that is flat-out unforgettable,” this meticulously researched novel re-imagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today. Amazon.com named the much-anticipated sequel as their Top Teen Book pick for 2008 and raved that Anderson “has completed a literary masterpiece that simply blows away its limited categorization as Young Adult literature. . . . No less than David McCullough and Joseph Ellis, Anderson turns everything you thought you knew about American history sideways.”
Anderson’s other work includes the funny and subversive novel Feed, an indictment of corporate and media-dominated culture with an unforgettable heroine, Violet, who is not afraid to think for herself. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews dubbed Feed “satire at its finest.” It was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and captured a National Book Award nomination in 2002. Anderson is also the author of picture books for younger readers, including Handel, Who Knew What He Liked (illustrated by Kevin Hawkes), which received the 2002 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.

“It’s important that we all prod ourselves so we don’t keep trundling along in the same rut. Startle yourself, so you recall how various and strange the world is.” —M. T. Anderson

Selected Works by the Author
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves (2008), The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen: M. T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales (2007), The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party (2006), Whales on Stilts: M. T. Anderson’s Thrilling Tales (2005), The Game of Sunken Places (2004), Feed (2002), Burger Wuss (1999), Thirsty (1997)

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Linda Sue Park
Sunday, May 3, 2009, 3:00 p.m.

The Hockaday School
Hoblitzelle Auditorium
11600 Welch Road
Dallas, Texas 75229

The daughter of Korean immigrants, Linda Sue Park has been writing poems and stories since she was four years old. Her favorite thing to do as a child was read.
After working as a public relations writer for a major oil company, moving to Ireland, getting married, starting a family, and teaching English as a second language to college students, Park returned to the United States and realized that what she really wanted to do was write books for children. She published her first novel, Seesaw Girl, in 1999. Her 2001 novel, A Single Shard, a poignant story about a Korean orphan and his fascination with the craft of making delicate celadon ware, won her the prestigious Newbery Medal in 2002 and firmly established her as a formidable force in children’s literature.
She has since written five more novels and six picture books for younger readers. In her most recent picture book, Tap Dancing on the Roof: A Collection of Sijo (2007), Park has returned to her roots as a poet to explore this ancient Korean three-line verse form and adapt it for modern readers.
Her latest novel, Keeping Score, has been named to Oprah’s new Kids Reading List. It is set in Brooklyn before the outbreak of the Korean War and follows the life of a young Italian-Irish girl and avid baseball fan, Maggie. Maggie learns to keep score from a childhood friend who is subsequently drafted into the army and sent overseas to fight in Korea, leaving Maggie behind, closely following events as they unfold in a country far away.
Park graduated from Stanford University with a degree in English and now lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children and their Border Terrier, Fergus.

“Park is a masterful prose stylist, and her characters are developed beautifully. She excels at making traditional Korean culture accessible to Western readers.”—Michael Levy, VOYA

Selected Works by the Author
Novels: Keeping Score (2008), Click (2007) (with Eoin Colfer, Gregory Maguire, Roddy Doyle, Margo Lanagan, Nick Hornby, et al), Archer’s Quest (2006), Project Mulberry (2005), When My Name Was Keoko (2002), A Single Shard (2001), The Kite Fighters (2000), Seesaw Girl (1999)
Picture Books: Tap Dancing on the Roof: A Collection of Sijo (2007), The Fire Keeper’s Son (2004)
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Robert Sabuda
May 31, 2009, 3:00 p.m.
In partnership with the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature

Hailed as the “Prince of Pop-Ups,” Robert Sabuda orchestrates major feats of paper engineering in his quest to bring to life literary classics in a new way. Growing up in Michigan as the son of a mason and carpenter, Sabuda aspired to be an artist at a young age; he learned (and perhaps inherited) the ability to create with his hands. He says of his childhood, “I spent hours, days, and weeks drawing, painting, cutting, and gluing. My bedroom was a constant whirlwind of pencil shavings, drippy paint brushes and paper scraps. My mother’s pleas of ‘when are you going to clean up this mess?!’ went unanswered.” Robert created magical worlds by making scenery and backdrops for his mother’s dance school recitals and covered his teachers’ bulletin boards with cut-paper collages. His mother gave him discarded manila file folders from Ford Motor Company, where she worked during the day; this rejected material ignited his imagination to make pop-ups. Sabuda attended Pratt Institute in New York City to study art. During his junior year, he had an internship at Dial Books for Young Readers, where he learned how a children’s book is created.
His innovative techniques include replicating handmade Egyptian papyrus for his book Tutankhamun’s Gift and creating paintings that resembled stained glass for Arthur and the Sword. Booklist raved about his Alice in Wonderland, saying, “Sabuda’s pop-ups gracefully unfurl—and then collapse upon themselves with jaw-dropping ease that leaves one flipping the pages back and forth in amazement.” Sabuda lives and works in New York City in a studio that he shares with partner Matthew Reinhart, who collaborates with him on many best-selling pop-up series, such as Encyclopedia Prehistorica and Encyclopedia Mythologica: Fairies and Magical Creatures.

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Special Late Night Family Event
Mummies, Magic, and Mayhem
A mystery-filled evening for all ages inspired by the exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs
Friday, March 20
Tickets for this evening are Included in general admission to the Museum. Book signings take place near the Museum Store.

Judy Schachner
7:00 p.m.
Recommended for ages 5 and older
Judy Schachner is the author and illustrator of the beloved Skippyjon Jones series of picture books, which follows the adventures of a Siamese cat who thinks he’s a Chihuahua.
At this event, Schachner will read and share insights about her latest book, Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble. When Skippyjon reads about cat mummies in National Leographic, his overactive imagination whisks him off to ancient Egypt via his closet. Full of Spanglish wordplay, adventurous antics, and bold illustrations, this book is sure to tickle the funny bones and warm the hearts of children and adults alike. Stay and participate in Late Night family activities and special tours inspired by Schachner’s work and the Museum’s collections.
Schachner lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with her family, a dog, and two Siamese cats—one of whom is named Skippy. Visit the author’s Web site at judithbyronschachner.com.

“I live in a constant state of 3rd grade bliss—making up stories and drawing pictures. Isn’t that what we all did as children?” —Judy Schachner

R. L. LaFevers
8:15 p.m.
Recommended for ages 8 and older
R. L. LaFevers has been fascinated by libraries and museums ever since she first set foot in them. LaFevers is the author of the acclaimed books Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos and Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris. Theodosia has a rather unusual life as the daughter of the curators of the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London (circa 1900). Her parents are so immersed in their work that they never seem to notice Theo’s penchant for sleeping in the sarcophagi or her special proclivity for lifting the curses off the mysterious ancient artifacts they collect. For more information, visit theodosiathrockmorton.com.

“[An] Indiana Jones for girls and a perfect blend of mystery and humor.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review of Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos)

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Special Event with Sherman Alexie and Colson Whitehead
May 1, 2009, 7:30 p.m.

University of Texas at Dallas
Conference Center
800 West Campbell Road
Richardson, Texas 75080
In partnership with the School of Arts & Humanities at UTD

Sherman Alexie’s debut young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and was inspired largely by his own adolescence. His newest novel, Radioactive Love Song (April 21, 2009), is narrated by William, who recently lost his mother. It’s a 21st-century Indian road odyssey, complete with a broken down car named Argo and an iPod full of classic
love songs containing heartfelt messages from his mother.

Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed author of The Intuitionist and John Henry Days (finalist for a Pulitzer Prize), which John Updike says “does what writing should do; it refreshes our
sense of the world.” He will discuss his newest novel, Sag Harbor (April 2009), which tells the story of Benji, one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan in 1985.
Drawing on Whitehead’s own “personal archaeology,” this novel mines the awkwardness of teenagers and masterfully explores racial and class identity.

Don’t miss this chance to hear two of the most celebrated writers of their generation explore common threads of love, loss, and music in their work.

“Being funny, you win hearts quicker; people laughing are more apt to listen.” —Sherman Alexie

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Tickets for all BooksmART events are $16 for public adult; $14 for member adults, seniors, and educators; $10 for students

Tickets for the Special Event with Sherman Alexie and Colson Whitehead are $30 for public adults; $25 for member adults, seniors, and educators; $15 for students.

Tickets for the Family Late Night: Mummies Magic and Mayhem with Judy Schachner and R.L. LaFevers are included in the price of admission to the Museum.