Category Archives: Announcements

The BiblioFiles Presents: Lissa Evans

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lissa evansJust posted! An interview with Lissa Evans, author of Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms and its sequel, Horten’s Incredible Illusions.

Stuart Horten has problems. First, he’s short. Very short. Second, he’s just moved to a new town and is bored. Very bored. Third, the triplet girls who live next door appear to have some sort of journalistic vendetta against him. They’re relentless. But everything changes when Stuart discovers a cache of old coins and a hidden message from his Great-Uncle, Tony. Great-Uncle Tony was a renowned stage magician, illusionist, and creator of fabulous contraptions. He mysteriously disappeared in 1940, leaving behind a secret workshop. If Stuart can follow the clues and solve the puzzles, he’ll find the workshop.

In the sequel, Stuart, accompanied by his friend April, once again finds himself on a mysterious adventure. This time, the clues are embedded in a series of Great-Uncle Tony’s custom-built stage illusions. But the magic is real, and in some cases, dangerous. And Stuart and April aren’t the only ones interested in getting their hands on what Great-Uncle Tony has hidden.

These books are so much fun to read, and to read aloud, to kids. They are creative, humorous, intriguing, and perfectly paced. Stuart and April are wonderful characters who squabble and reconcile so realistically, you feel like you’re joining a pair of old friends. The clever clues, puzzles, and the mysteries they unveil will keep you intrigued until the very end. Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal and the Costa Book Awards.

Follow this link to the BiblioFiles webcast, podcast, and transcript

I had much success reading both books aloud at our story time for 6-8 year-olds. Check out the amazing mechanisms we built for Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms, and the mini magic shows we made for Horten’s Incredible Illusions!

Balancing & Blogging

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blogging and balancingEvery spring, as the academic year winds down here at Princeton University, I take a look at my own programming year. I assess its scope, its workload, and then I balance and tweak if necessary. And that is how, after much debate, I decided that Pop Goes the Page will now post just once a week, and that day shall be Tuesday, in the morning.

That is not to say that there will not be a Friday post from time to time! Whenever a new author interview premieres on the Bibliofiles (and new one is coming up in May!) or an interesting tidbit or announcement come up, I’ll send out a Friday post. If you’re worried you might miss one, please consider adding yourself to the subscriber list.

Having published close to 175 posts, I thought it would be interesting to see which ones have been the most popular. Here are the top 5, in ranking order…

  1. Magical Miniatures
  2. Mythomagic
  3. Beware of Squirrel
  4. Fly You High
  5. Everyone’s an Engineer

Our reining pin on Pinterest? Fair Trade. It’s been added to classroom boards, Wild West boards, historical fiction boards, Ox Cart Man boards, home school boards, Early America boards…wow. You go, little covered wagon!

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you Tuesday!

The Little Library That Could

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cotsen bookThis week, Princeton University featured the Cotsen Children’s Library on their home page! In addition to a lovely article, there’s a short video that includes footage of our programs, interviews with some of our students, and shots of Bookscape, our public gallery for children. And yes, I’m in the video too!

A few blog connections: The chapter book I’m reading to the children at the beginning of the video is Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke. You can see the sword and shield project we did for the book here.

The picture book I’m reading to the younger children is Snail Boy by Leslie McGuirk. The accompanying project (a pull string snail and super-slow snail races) can be found here.

Jared Crooks is a University graduate student and the author of the book he’s leafing through! It’s titled The Several Strange Adventures of Max and Ding. You can read more about Jared, and see the robot backpacks we made at his story time, here.

jared's bookA big thank you to Danielle Alio, Multimedia Supervisor at Princeton University’s Office of Communications. You did a beautiful job capturing the spirit of our library in this video. Thank you so much.