The Warwick Children’s Book Festival was a great day! This was my first(!) in-person event since the start of the pandemic–and the only in-person event I’ve done since Alone in the Woods was released last fall. It was so great to be back with a fantastic group of children’s authors and to have a chance to meet and chat with readers. Here are a few favorite pictures from the day:
Me, with all my books. Not pictured–the bees that inexplicably loved my sweater and stalked me throughout the day.
According to my Instagram, these nine photos sum up my 2019:
I see a lot of books (launching The Disaster Days and receiving an honor for The Last Grand Adventure), writing (I took my 2020 release from blank page to revised, final manuscript in 11 months!), and one throwback to my very delicious wedding cake from several years ago. Cakes and books: that seems like the best of a year to me!
Hope you had a happy year, with plenty of opportunities for joy, creativity, and growth.
Author friend Michelle Schusterman and I had a fantastic time visiting schools and bookstores in the Dallas area this November: Lamar Middle School in Flower Mound; Bowie, Crockett, Lady Bird Johnson, and Lamar Middle Schools in Irving; Barnes & Noble Southlake; and Interabang Books!
We were so impressed by the engaged readers and talented writers we met along the way. Here are a few photos from our tour:
[ngg src=”galleries” ids=”7″ display=”basic_slideshow”](Interested in having me, or us, visit your school? Check out my Visits page for more info!)
Pics, or it didn’t happen, right? 🙂
October was a whirlwind of bookish events, and I’ve had a great time introducing The Disaster Days to readers. Here are some photos from my launches in New York and Wisconsin and other places I’ve shared my book:
The Disaster Days has been making its way around the blogosphere and Bookstagram, and I’m so grateful to the reviewers, bloggers, and bookstagrammers who’ve taken the time to read and then write such thoughtful reviews!
“Really, really enjoyed this!” Ms. Yingling Reads
“This story was truly page-turning and exciting” Tara Creel Books
“I was enraptured enough by this book that I kept getting feelings of sorrow with each thing that happened to them. I wanted to reach into the book and, if nothing else, grab hold of them and let them know it was going to be okay.” Reading Authors
“Are you serious with this book?! I was on the edge of my seat the entire time while reading” @TheSmileLines via KidLitExchange
“Rebecca Behrens’s The Disaster Days is a compelling and empowering middle-grade disaster story that will have readers on the edge of their seats and breathless!” Aeicha at Word Spelunking
“Readers who like adventure and wonder what it would be like to live/survive in an earthquake zone will be riveted to every page of Hannah’s story.” The Reading Tub
“Behrens does a great job drawing readers into experiencing the children’s feelings of fear and hopelessness. Each chapter has enough peril and nail biting angst to keep even the most reluctant reader eagerly reading to find out what will happen next to Hannah and her charges.” You Decide: Should I Read It Or Not?
“Very much recommended to anyone who loves kids surviving on their own stories!” Charlotte’s Library
“I really liked how Hannah develops as a character, making mistakes, but doing everything she can to care for herself and the younger children and a cute guinea pig.” Stephanie Tournas, Youth Services Book Review
“The writing was so well done…fun and fresh, and exciting.” The Pages In Between
“Though set in the Pacific Northwest this tense tale of post-earthquake survival is equally relevant to other areas where natural disasters are a constant threat, and may encourage middle grade readers to think and find out about their family and school disaster plans.” Bibliobrit
“This one is a definite must-read, must-have.” Mom Read It
“It’s The Babysitter’s Club meets Hatchet! Enough said.” Miss Print
Check out the amazing emergency kit video from Bookstagrammer @RidaPageTurner!
“Suspenseful reading for students and adults alike!” Ms_D_Reads
“I loved this book and had a hard time putting it down.” The Librarian Is On the Loose
Last week, I visited four great schools in New Jersey (Bloomfield Middle School, Roosevelt Middle School, Byram Township Intermediate School, and Fredon Township School) to talk to young readers and writers about The Disaster Days and how I research the real (and really fascinating) facts in all my books. One of the best parts of being an author is connecting with kids, sharing about the publishing process with them, and hearing their great questions!
TR in the library at Roosevelt Middle School!
A warm welcome from Bloomfield Middle School
The wonderful audience at Byram Township Intermediate School
Roosevelt Middle School’s cozy LMC. Their amazing librarian was setting up an escape room!
Talking about research trips at Roosevelt Middle School
Sharing a bit about all my books at Fredon Township School
Big thanks to Watchung Booksellers, Sparta Books, and Sourcebooks Kids for making these visits possible!
Trade reviews for The Disaster Days have kept rolling in, and I’m excited to share what these critics have to say about Hannah’s story:
“Behrens’s natural disaster–themed epic portrays a young person’s grace under pressure. . . . Her extraordinary resourcefulness and courage in deadly situations highlight her burgeoning maturity. Behrens (When Audrey Met Alice) uses immersive details and situations effectively viewed from Hannah’s perspective to create a suspenseful, vivid story filled with lessons about responsibility and overcoming adversity.” —Publishers Weekly
“After reading Behrens’s informative, riveting portrayal of earthquakes and their aftermath, readers may learn how to respond in a similar situation. VERDICT A realistic, engrossing survival story that’s perfect for aspiring babysitters and fans of John Macfarlane’s Stormstruck!, Sherry Shahan’s Ice Island, or Wesley King’s A World Below.”—Kaetlyn Phillips, Yorkton, Sask., School Library Journal
“The relentless progression of a variety of disaster scenarios will keep readers turning pages even as they learn, along with Hannah, vital information about earthquake safety and survival. Equally suspenseful and informative, this novel will spark important discussions about disaster preparedness.” —Jenna MacKay, School Library Connection
“The strength of this steadily paced novel that stretches over four days of a scary disaster scenario is that Hannah doesn’t figure everything out; she stumbles, doubts, and struggles throughout it all” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Thanks to Goodreads (which I tend to use as a booklog, pretty much just for this purpose), I’m taking a look back at my reading stats for 2018:
These books took me from Cameroon to Moscow to Fiji to Antarctica to Topsea, and from Ancient Greece to outer space. (Can I get airline miles for this?!)
In terms of category, I read 18 middle grade books, 4 YA, 4 nonfiction, and the rest were adult fiction. And I seem to have a thing for blue covers.
In 2019, I’m switching from reading goals to a reading thesis: read to discover, read diversely, read without time pressure, read joyfully. I’m debating whether to keep tracking online–it is handy for the year-end page and book count (although I cannot figure out why Goodreads insists these 59 books are 60), but it also adds a little pressure to add, add, add books. We’ll see what I decide . . .
What were your favorite books of the year, and what do you hope to read in 2019?
Time flies when you’re having fun . . . or you’re revising. I was doing both this fall. In November I turned in the final manuscript for my next MG novel, which will be out in October 2019. The new title (and cover, and a bunch of other info) I’ll share in the new year!
In terms of fun, I had great trips to Wisconsin (where the fall color is always divine), California (where the Disneyland is always magical), and Sleepy Hollow (where the Halloween is pumpkininny). In terms of bookish fun, on October 28 I visited the lovely New Canaan Library for a middle-grade author extravaganza. We had a lively panel followed by a signing, and it was delightful.
The extravagant authors (and friends)
Our books on display at Elm Street Books 🙂
The lovely library
The next Saturday was one of my favorite days of the year: nErDcampLI! I was too busy learning, sharing, connecting, laughing to take many pictures, but here are two:
Our panel on school visits went great–lots of ideas to incorporate for next year!
Book love in cookie form
Now I’m ready to hibernate with a new project I’m writing. Hope your fall was fantastic!
On July 21, I was thrilled to be a part of the Amelia Earhart Festival–the annual celebration of her birthday in her birthplace of Atchison, Kansas. Readers of The Last Grand Adventure will know what a significant place Atchison was in Amelia’s (and her sister, Muriel’s) life. For me, it was a place I came to know, and love, through research. This passage from Muriel Earhart Morrissey’s biography of Amelia, Courage Is the Price, shows why:
“Midsummer evenings have always been a time of mystic spellbinding for the young. The long August twilights wrought their peculiar magic upon Amelia and me when we were little girls in Atchison. I remember the symphony of summer sounds; the chirping of crickets and of the invisible tree-toads . . . As the last carnation and saffron clouds faded, bats began to dart across the darkening sky, and, as if in defiance of these harbingers of the nightfall, fireflies twinkled in the garden and across the way among the peach and pear trees in the orchard.”
Such a lovely description! How can you read that and not want to write about Atchison in the summertime?
While writing When Audrey Met Alice and Summer of Lost and Found, I was able to visit my settings in person. For The Last Grand Adventure, the closest I’d gotten was Google Earth. So it was incredibly meaningful to see the town for myself, and to meet the warm and welcoming people who live there. And what a weekend to visit–the festival draws in thousands of Earhart experts and enthusiasts and leaders in STEM and aviation fields to celebrate not just Amelia’s birthday but her incredible life and accomplishments. I had a great time sharing my book and also learning so much more about her life and legacy.
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A picture is worth a thousand words–but unfortunately, I was having so much fun sharing The Last Grand Adventure with readers that I barely took any (other than of books) during my events!
If you missed the AASL webinar I did with school librarian extraordinaire Eileen Makoff and dynamite authors Sara Holbrook and Jo Hackl, you can still listen to it here, on the AASL website: Author Ideas on Integrating Fiction into the Middle-Grade and Middle-School Curriculum.
I had a great time with author friends Michelle Schusterman and Kirsten Hubbard (aka Fox & Coats) at the Voracious Reader in Larchmont, NY–their new series Secrets of Topsea is sweet and zany and so creative.
Later that weekend, I headed down to DC to the awesome Arlington indie One More Page, where Lauren Magaziner, Jonathan Roth, and I had a fun panel:
Lauren also spotted Audrey hanging out at the Amazon bookstore in DC:
The following weekend was nErDcampNJ, which was full of engaging and inspiring talks and workshops. It’s also a super fun chance to meet up with other kidlit authors in real life:
I’m back at home now, working on a new project and resting up for some of the events I have planned this summer–hope to see you there!
Books of Wonder MG panel: May 19
Bethany Beach Books: June 11
Amelia Earhart Festival: July 21
(For more info and updates, check the Events page of my site.)
Time flies when you’re having fun, and when you’re launching a new book. I can’t believe The Last Grand Adventure has already been out for three weeks! It’s been a lot of fun traveling around and talking about Bea and Pidge and Amelia’s adventures. Here’s where I’ve been so far:
I got to share The Last Grand Adventure a little early with readers at Barnes & Noble Neshaminy in Bensalem, PA. Lauren Magaziner, Tae Keller, Jessica Lawson, and I had a lot of fun answering questions and tackling truth-or-dares.
On Saturday, March 24, I officially launched The Last Grand Adventure with the help of the fantastic Claire Legrand, at Books of Wonder’s new Uptown store. We had a great talk about writing quietly adventurous MG characters and our own travel experiences. And I turned my book into Rice Krispie treats, because of course.
Airplane dress!
I wonder why we were laughing so hard?
Next I hopped a plane home to Madison, WI, where I met some fantastic young readers at EAGLE School and Thoreau Elementary, my alma mater.
Then celebrated the book’s release with a reading at my hometown indie, Mystery to Me. I forgot to take any pictures at this event other than this “After” one of my book cake. It was the most delicious map I have ever eaten.
You can check out my Instagram for some photos and reposts of Bea and Pidge in the wild. And if you’d still like a chance to have a book signed or meet me in person, I’ll be at The Voracious Reader in Larchmont as well as One More Page in Arlington, VA, this weekend. Check out my Events page for all the details!