Alan Silberberg Makes Kids Giggle

Alan Silberberg, author of Pond Scum, and the Thurber House Children's Writer In Residence, spoke at Cover to Cover Children's Bookstore yesterday.

Here he is, telling about how the voices inside his head, aka his imagination, were responsible for his first creative responses to school writing assignments. The praise he got in elementary and middle school for his creative writing helped him to become the writer he is today. A career in TV and movie cartoon writing helped him to become a very visual writer, as evidenced in Pond Scum.

And his cartooning (you can get a taste of it at his blog and on his website) will get to shine in his next book, Milo, an illustrated novel (small nod of thanks from Alan to Jeff Kinney for opening that door) about "a 13 year-old kid who has to start over." Alan read a couple of the first chapters to us, and showed the accompanying cartoons. This was when he made the kids (especially the 3rd grade boy) giggle. (The adults laughed too.) Alan has found/created a great character in Milo, a character that kids are going to love and relate to. (I say, MOVE OVER, Jeff Kinney!)