The Linn Library League invites the public to a presentation by Eric Kimmel, a children’s book author from Portland, at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, at the Sweet Home Public Library.
A former college professor, Kimmel learned stories and the art of storytelling as a child, from his Ukrainian grandmother and from neighbors in the multi-ethnic stew of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Fifty-five of Kimmel’s children’s books are now in print, and most of them have won awards, from such organizations as the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, Publishers Weekly, and the National Council of Teachers. Some of Kimmel’s best-known titles are “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins,” “Three Samurai Cats,” “Gershon’s Monster,” “Four Dollars and Fifty Cents,” “The Runaway Tortilla,” and the Anansi books, such as “Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock,” “Anansi and the Talking Melon” and “Anansi and the Magic Stick.”
More information about Kimmel and his books is available at his Web site, http://www.ericakimmel.com.
In each of his presentations Kimmel will tell several stories and then explain how he makes a story into a book. He will illustrate his talk with actual manuscripts, galleys, and press sheets from his files, so that children can understand the complex steps of the publishing process. “Presentations like this deepen children’s interest in books and reading, and they make children think, ‘I could be a writer, too!'” said Sue Spiker, coordinator of the Linn Library League’s Rural Summer Reading Program.
The Sweet Home Public Library is at 1101 13th Avenue in Sweet Home. For more information about Kimmel’s library presentations, call the Sweet Home Public Library at 367-5007.