In-Store Reading: Rosanne Parry, Trudy Ludwig, Mark Fearing

Annie Bloom’s welcomes our own Rosanne Parry for a reading from her new picture book, Big Truck Day. Rosanne will be joined by local authors Trudy Ludwig, whose new picture book is Calling the Wind: A Story of Healing and Hope, and Mark Fearing, whose new middle grade book is Welcome to Feral. This event is presented in coordination with Portland Book Festival’s Cover to Cover program.

This in-store reading is first come, first served. Seating is limited. Please be mindful of any store health policies that might be in effect on the night of the reading.

About Big Truck Day:

Get ready for Big Truck Day! Celebrate trucks, reading, sharing, and community with award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author Rosanne Parry and debut illustrator Niki Stage. Big Truck Day is a wonderful choice for readers who love vehicles of all kinds and for fans of Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site and Little Blue Truck. Told in a lively rhyming text, two parallel stories follow children and drivers motoring to the library for a very special event: a book drive! Join friends and neighbors of all ages as they salute big trucks, great books, and community helpers . . . and stay for the reveal of the new library bookmobile made possible by book donations from the community. Hooray! Big Truck Day is a celebration of libraries, books, communities, and things that go.

Rosanne Parry is the author of the acclaimed novels A Wolf Called Wander, A Whale of the Wild, Heart of a Shepherd, Second Fiddle, and Written in Stone. She has taught writing at schools, conferences, educational nonprofits, and online at the Loft Literary Center and works as an independent bookseller. She and her family live in an old farmhouse in Portland, Oregon. She writes in a tree house in her backyard.

About Calling the Wind: A Story of Healing and Hope:

This poignant story explores the stages of grief, the healing power of hope, and the unbreakable family bonds that connect us all. From the acclaimed author of The Invisible Boy and the award-winning illustrator of One. In a small village in Japan, a family mourns the loss of their loved one. Each family member grieves in their own way, but it is not until they discover an old-fashioned telephone booth on a windswept hill that they begin to heal. Through the telephone, they are able to express feelings long bottled up–speaking directly to their loved one and also to each other. Slowly but surely, the pain subsides, and hope blossoms anew. Inspired by Itaru Sasaki’s Wind Telephone, which brought healing to the people of Japan in the wake of an Earthquake and tsunami this story explores grief and loss, and how we move forward by finding meaningful ways to connect with the family and friends we’ve lost, as well as those who are still with us.

Trudy Ludwig is a nationally acclaimed speaker and an award-winning author of numerous children’s books, including The Invisible Boy, a School Library Journal Best Picture Books Selection and a recommended back-to-school book by USA Today and Scholastic Teacher. Her books and presentations focus on promoting kids’ social-emotional learning skills and help empower them to be kinder, more compassionate, and inclusive in their social world. Trudy has collaborated with leading experts and organizations, including Sesame Workshop, the International Bullying Prevention Association, Committee for Children, and ConnectSafely.org.

About Welcome to Feral:

How many kids will go missing before this town admits it’s haunted? Find out in this freakily fun new graphic novel series! Feral has everything a small town should have: Main Street, City Hall, a population just over sixteen thousand. But Feral also has secrets. Mysteries. Unexplained disappearances. In five spooky stories, an intrepid young resident invites readers to look a little closer at this scenic rural town. Are you game to investigate what’s going on in Feral? If you pay attention, you might notice something where it shouldn’t be. Be careful, though. Whatever you do, do not go into the Messner Mansion. Don’t say we didn’t warn you! With vibrant art, clever humor, and heaps of unsolved mysteries, animator Mark Fearing conjures a fearsome saga out of small-town terrors. The first entry in this inventive new series is sure to scare young readers silly.

Mark Fearing has never been bitten by a werewolf, a zombie, or a vampire. But he was bitten by the creative bug which is far more dangerous. Books he’s illustrated include The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot, by Margaret McNamara, and Ben Franklin’s in My Bathroom!, by Candace Fleming, as well as The Great Thanksgiving Escape, which he also wrote. He lives in Oregon with his family.