The Most Wonderful People in the World

At yesterday's Connecticut Book Festival, we talked about finding your doodling i.d. -- your icon doodle -- such as these I created for Doodlebug and Cootie Catcher, the main characters in Doodlebug.

For me, the most wonderful people in the world are those who love stories -- whether the stories are told in words or pictures or both, whether the people are adults or kids (or both?), and whether they draw or write themselves, or not.

Yesterday, at the first of what I hope are many Connecticut Book Festivals, I had a chance to meet such people. They included adults and kids (such as Sadie, who was one of the winners about the Letters About Literature competition), artists and writers, including the very wonderful Tony Abbott. And they seemed happy to be hearing about stories such as Doodlebug and my Humanimal Doodles, which are told in writing and in doodles.

One of the things we got to talking about was the trend in children's literature toward books told in a variety of visual styles. I mentioned Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Popularity Papers, and Middle School Is Even Worse Than Meatloaf. We also talked about the increasing recognition of doodling as a way some people learn (like me). And, if I'd only had time, I would have liked to share a few doodlers and doodling sites I've recently discovered.

• One comes from Carolina Pedraza, who used to be the head of youth and family programs at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I worked with Carolina to broaden the reach of the Draw On! program in our area. Now Carolina has gone on to use her art in news ways you can learn about at Wacky Shorts.

• Another great doodling destination is Wendy McNaughton's comic Meanwhile, The San Francisco Public Library, at The Rumpus. I'll race you over there, as I'm eager to find out more about it, but have already been soaking up Wendy's terrific drawings, which serve as visual proof of the immense value of libraries to the communities they serve.

• Do you know about the incredible art people have been doing in their Moleskines? Start googling Moleskine art and you will be astonished. For example, see if you can view this video that Paula Scher made of the fonts she invented in her Moleskine (the daisy petals are my favorite -- so simple and great-looking) without wanting to run out and buy your own Moleskine and doodle your own groovy new font. (Thanks to Judith Schwartz for posting this!)

• F'inally, do you know that children's book artists are auctioning their doodles and other art? Visit this one, in which Paul O. Zelinsky draws young authors John Green, David Levithan, Libba Bray and E. Lockhart (along with her character Stingray from the adorable Toys Go Out). This large, fine silent auction will benefit the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and will take place online and at this week's BEA (Book Expo of America). You can find out more about it here.

A first for Connecticut, and me.

The Connecticut Book Festival, the first ever state book festival, which will take place this coming weekend, May 21 - 22, at the University of Connecticut's Greater Hartford Campus. The rain will stop, the sun will shine, owls will flap their wings in delight, and book people of all feathers will arrive to celebrate reading, writing, illustration, and yes, doodling.

The event's organizer, Kat Lyons, former director of the Connecticut Center for the Book, expects 10,000 people for the first Connecticut Book Festival, which makes me supremely happy, because I love books, but also gives me nervous butterflies in my stomach, because I'm going to be there to read from and talk about Doodlebug: A Novel in Doodles.

Just to clarify: there is also a Connecticut Children's Book Fair, organized by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in November 2010. But this new festival is set up to bring together readers and authors of books for adults and teens -- and there will be children's events, too. As a young adult author, I think this is an interesting shift. As far as publishing goes, young adult books are generally part of children's books, and are stocked near children's books in bookstores. But they are often shelved completely separately in libraries (on a separate floor in my home library, the Bethel Public Library).

So what's going to be going on? Here's just a taste:

• FOOD (often food is last on the list, but let's get serious, okay?)

• Wally Lamb (She's Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, and other novels. He's incredible, and I have shaken his hand.) Here's a profile of him on Teen Reads.

• Wendell Minor, the only illustrator I've ever known to have his own billboard. Wendell's work is so beautiful. One of my favorites is this polar bear.

• A journal-making workshop led by the Amistad Center for Art and Culture (I encourage doodling in journals.)

• "Ink Passion," a performance by dancEnlight. (Having frequently done ink dances myself, I am intrigued.)

The Hartford Advocate published a complete discussion of the festival here, and I'd also like to refer you to Caragh O'Brien's blog. If you don't know Caragh's young adult Birthmarked trilogy, you should. And you'll have a chance when she takes part in a panel of young adult authors at the book festival this Sunday at 3:30.

Caragh's blog includes a picture from the lunch she and I shared with Kat Lyons and Billie Levy after Billie hosted us on her television show Children's Books: Their Creators and Collectors, where Kat, Caragh, and I talked about our work and shared our anticipation of the Connecticut Book Festival.

I'll be at the festival on Sunday, reading from Doodlebug at 2, and signing (and doodling on) books afterward. Please come find me! (If anything calms the butterflies, it's smiling faces. )

And if you're wondering how I'm going to read from a book that's done in doodles, you'll have to come find out. There's a giant book -- and some giant doodles -- involved.