Jo Nesbø School Visit

Jo Nesbø is a Norwegian author perhaps best know for his adult mystery books, but he has also written the Doctor Proctor Fart Powder series for kids. He was in town today to do a school visit with us during the day for his children's books and to do an event with Micawber's Bookstore in the evening for his adult books.

We held the event at Highland Park Elementary (a huge thank you to the principal, Teresa Vibar, the librarian, Margot Barry, as well as the 3rd-5th grade teachers. You helped make the event the success it was!).

In the first Doctor Proctor book, the characters drink sparkling pear juice made from the pear tree in the doctor's yard.

Students reading Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder as they wait for Jo Nesbø to arrive.

We started in the library, where Jo Nesbø signed copies of his three books: Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder, Bubble in the Bathtub, and Who Cut the Cheese?.

We were joined by the two students who introduced Mr. Nesbø for the event.

Students introducing Mr. Nesbø.

Jo Nesbø was a wonderful speaker - he kept the students engaged, interested, and laughing during his whole talk. 

The students had great questions for him afterwards, and loved finding out even more about him!

 After the talk, everyone swarmed around him. All the students wanted to keep asking him questions. Some even came up and asked if they could hug him! (He graciously accepted). 

Then we headed back to the library for some treats. In addition to the pear juice, we had Fart Powder cake and jello (the characters eat jello frequently in the book to celebrate. We asked Mr. Nesbø if they also eat jello in the Norwegian version or if that's specific to the English translation. He told us they eat caramel pudding when he wrote it in Norwegian!). 

Mr. Nesbø cuts into the cake!

We were so thrilled to do this event with Jo Nesbø. He was such an entertaining speaker, and had endless amounts of patience and energy throughout the entire event. Not to mention, he was incredible with all the students!

Thank you to Mr. Nesbø, Paul Crichton of Simon&Schuster for making this event possible and Tim Hedges of Around Town Agency. To quote the students: "This is the best day ever!!!!"

PS We have signed copies of all three books available at Addendum. 

UPDATE: Now sold out of Book 2: Bubble in the Bathtub.

Halloween Books!

 Halloween books are out at Addendum now!

We have a lot of great books to choose from, with more still coming in.
 

Our Halloween selection includes picture books, middle grade books, and books for young adults.

 

Twin Cities Book Festival

Today was the 12th annual Twin Cities Book Festival, presented by Rain Taxi.

"The ... Festival includes readings by world-class authors and local literary heroes; a day-long book 

 fair featuring publishers, authors, booksellers, and more." - Rain Taxi website

It was great to spend the day surrounded by books, authors, publishers, and book enthusiasts! We went to a couple presentations during the day, but the main one we wanted to attend was the Young Adult Showcase Panel.  
  

Four YA authors shared their newest books with us. The authors were introduced by Molly Beth Griffin, whose book Silhouette of a Sparrow was released September of this year. 

Milkweed

(the cover art for this book is by Elsa Mora. Her silhouettes are incredible!)

Anne Greenwood Brown (who was also at our grand opening) read excerpts from her book Lies Beneath.

Delacorte Press - Random House

 

Anna Waggener read from her book Grim. We were lucky enough to meet her and receive our own signed copies of Grim when we attended the Heartland Fall Forum!

Scholastic

Amanda Hocking, a Minnesota author from Austin, read from her book Wake.  

St. Martin's Griffin - Macmillan

Bree Despain's newest book is the third in The Dark Divine trilogy, The Savage Grace, but she read from the first one because she said reading from her newest one would be like reading one big spoiler. She also talked about the inspiration for the trilogy, and it was fascinating to hear how this story came to be.  

Egmont USA

Although she wasn't on the young adult panel, we also heard Rachel Gold speak. Her YA book, Being Emily, is about a transgender girl. This is "a story for anyone who has ever felt that the inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand…" - from the author's website.

Bella Books

 

Then we got delicious greasy fries and ate them while we walked home in the rain.