From Kalamazoo to Maplewood, A Cookie Story

Well, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I boarded the American Eagle flight from Newark on Wednesday, September 10. I’m not a big traveller for one thing, and I’d never been to Kalamazoo, or even to Michigan for that matter. I’d never been on a book tour either. I landed in Chicago and quickly realized things are a little different there—we were told that  we couldn’t deplane because the airline terminal workers were at lunch (like the eat-your-sandwich kind of lunch)! We sat on the plane, at the gate, waiting . . . hoping they would eat fast. And when we finally were able to get off the plane, I ran as fast as I could to get to the connecting flight to Kalamazoo.

I was met by my collaborator, David Small, and his wife (and also his collaborator) Sarah Stewart, and they gave me a tour of lovely Kalamazoo. We had a wonderful event at the most gorgeous library I’ve ever seen that night, the Kalamazoo Public Library, hosted by the one-and-only Kevin A. R. King. The next day was a packed event at one of the most pleasing stores I’ve seen, the http://www.bookbugkalamazoo.com/, with the charming and witty owners, Joanna and Derek Parzakonis. By the way, this store is not just a children’s store, they have a wonderful selection of adult titles as well so I’m trying to help spread the word here.

I also enjoyed an incredible couple of days in Mendon with David and Sarah, complete with a tour of Sarah’s wonderful garden and a lunch at the Fisher Lake Inn, where David began the journey that ended with the publication of his graphic memoir STITCHES. On Friday David and I flew back to Maplewood, NJ, my home, and we celebrated our book for the next three days straight. Thanks to the magnanimous Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Illingworth (both of http://www.morrowpreschool.org/, the indomitable and charming Mrs. Jane Folger of www.maplewoodlibrary.org and the terrific Jonah Zimiles of http://wordsbookstore.com/, as well as the cool and crazy chicks Marcy Thompson and Jenny Turner Hall of http://www.studiobmaplewood.org/about.php. By the way, none of this would have been as tasty without the best baker in the USA: http://www.theablebaker.com/bakery.html.

Here is David at [words]:

And here we are at the Bookbug, the Maplewood Library, and [words] again, with the live rogue cookie!

And here, with the Able Baker herself!

And then, to cap off a perfect launch week, we received this wonderful review by Maria Russo in The New York Times Book Review!

I’m looking forward to hanging around town for a bit now, and getting to work on my next project.