the category of "Children’s Books"
This past weekend, I attended the Turning the Page: New Stories for Newtown event in Connecticut. The tragedy that befell the people of Newtown at Sandy Hook Elementary School this past December left so many of us wishing we could reach out and help the community recover. This literary festival, cosponsored by the Children’s Book Council (CBC), the C.H. Booth Library’s Books Heal Hearts fund, and many children’s book publishers, including ABRAMS, had an important impact on the community.

Jeff Kinney was named Author of the Year for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel by the Children’s Book Council at the annual Gala, held last night in New York City. This is Kinney’s second consecutive win!

Today, we are thrilled to celebrate the official release of ART2-D2’S GUIDE TO FOLDING AND DOODLING! The companion activity book to our New York Times bestselling ORIGAMI YODA series by Tom Angleberger. Tom will show you how to fold your own Art2-D2 in a really cool instructional video after the break!

THIS IS MADNESS with Darth Paper, Art2-D2 and Origami Yoda! Vote for R2-D2 on StarWars.com!

I have a particular love of the Pacific Northwest. My parents wanted desperately to move to Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in 1987 but were unable to sell our Northeastern home. Any chance I have to visit the area is one I look forward to with particular enthusiasm. Although I have been to Seattle and Portland many times, I had never been to any of the areas between them (riding the Wimpy Kid tour bus overnight doesn’t count as a real visit).

The RRKidz app made its debut on Apple’s iTunes in June 2012 and I joined representatives from Holiday House Books, Little Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group, and others for the launch party. Mr. Burton — oh, who am I kidding, he’s LeVar! — LeVar and I exchanged good wishes and he thanked ABRAMS for providing, yep, our beautiful books (and it should come as no surprise that I have a newfound interest in Star Trek: Next Generation 365).

GENIE WISHES is a charming middle-grade novel about a one-of-a-kind fifth grader’s wishes, hopes, and dreams. Written by Elisabeth Dahl, a debut author, the book will be published by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS, in April 2013. GENIE WISHES is a story about fifth grade—highs, lows, and hamster erasers—as seen through the eyes of the class blogger, Genie. Learn more about GENIE WISHES and more about Elisabeth after the break!

SPLINTERED is a stunning debut that captures the fantastical madness of a mystical under-land as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner, the fictional great-great-great-granddaughter of the real Alice Liddell, the woman who inspired Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, finds that the real Wonderland is full of strange beings and dark agendas. She must right the wrongs of Alice to break a maddening family curse. This month we celebrate the release of Splintered by debut author A. G. Howard. Learn more about the author after the break!

The following shows the process Ethen and I went through while working on the cover for Michael Buckley’s latest series, NERDS. I wish I could have better descriptions but I don’t want to give away all my secrets. See how the cover evolved after the break.

If you don’t have a son or daughter under the age of 15 (or so) and you work in an office (as I do) you may not have the chance to actually visualize the success of the Wimpy Kid books first hand. My boys are grown-ups (18, 22, 27) and will read a Wimpy book if there’s one lying around the house, but they aren’t Mr. Kinney’s audience.
