Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Wednesday Jan 06, 2021
SKYLIT: Mauro Gatti, "THE HAPPY BROADCAST" w/ Evan Spiridellis
Wednesday Jan 06, 2021
Wednesday Jan 06, 2021
Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Oct 16, 2020
SKYLIT: Kaela Green, "SCOTTIE ON THE SPACE STATION"
Friday Oct 16, 2020
Friday Oct 16, 2020
Ellie and her family love living on the space station With a mother who is an intergalactic doctor and a father who studies the stars, Ellie's life on the station is a blast. They can do anything you can do on Earth... except they can do it with alien visitors in zero gravity. Sometimes the aliens don't know how to play or talk with Ellie's little brother, Scottie, because he is a person with disabilities. But this doesn't stop Ellie from introducing them and showing them that Scottie is a great friend Come join Ellie and Scottie as they meet a young alien who has just arrived on the station...
Scottie on the Space Station author Kaela Green is in conversation with Skylight events manager Maddie Gobbo.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Meena Harris, "KAMALA AND MAYA'S BIG IDEA"
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Based on a true story from the childhood of Meena Harris’s aunt, Senator Kamala Harris, and mom, Maya Harris, Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea is about two sisters working together to create change in their community.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Tuesday Nov 26, 2019
Mark Z. Danielewski, "THE LITTLE BLUE KITE"
Tuesday Nov 26, 2019
Tuesday Nov 26, 2019
We all have fears, but if we can’t face the small ones how will we face the big ones? Kai is afraid to fly a little blue kite. But Kai is also very, very brave, and overcoming this small fear will lead him on a great adventure.
Remember: all great adventures start with one little moment. You know the one. It’s like a gentle breeze whispering in your ear what you already know by heart:
not even the sky is the limit . . .
The only other thing you might want to know about this book is that there are at least three ways to read it.
The first way takes only a few minutes. Just follow the rainbow-colored words.
The second takes only a little bit longer. Just follow the words haloed with blue and red and the rainbow words too.
For the third way, just start at the beginning.
Monday Sep 30, 2019
Mina Javaherbin, "MY GRANDMA AND ME"
Monday Sep 30, 2019
Monday Sep 30, 2019
While Mina is growing up in Iran, the center of her world is her grandmother. Whether visiting friends next door, going to the mosque for midnight prayers during Ramadan, or taking an imaginary trip around the planets, Mina and her grandma are never far apart. At once deeply personal and utterly universal, Mina Javaherbin’s words make up a love letter of the rarest sort: the kind that shares a bit of its warmth with every reader. Soft, colorful, and full of intricate patterns, Lindsey Yankey’s illustrations feel like a personal invitation into the coziest home, and the adoration between Mina and her grandma is evident on every page.
Monday Sep 09, 2019
DRAG QUEEN STORYTIME w/ Sadie Pines
Monday Sep 09, 2019
Monday Sep 09, 2019
We hosted the oh-so-fabulous Sadie Pines, the woMAN behind writer/comedian H. Alan Scott. Sadie is the first and only drag queen fully inspired by The Golden Girls (it’s true, don’t bother Googling it). Sadie was born out of H. Alan’s years of interacting with Golden Girls fans through the podcast Out on the Lanai. Now she’s out living her golden life, and guess what? She’s here to make yours a little brighter too. For more, follow her at @SadiePines.
Sadie will read Mary Wears What She Wants, by Keith Negley, and lead the kiddos in some fun activities. The event is free and open to the public. Any donations will go towards the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital.
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
INTERSECTIONALLIES
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
Tuesday Aug 13, 2019
In poetic stanzas, IntersectionAllies introduces the stories of nine kids from diverse backgrounds. Authors Carolyn Choi, LaToya Council, and Chelsea Johnson use each character’s story to explain how children’s safety concerns are shaped by their intersecting identities, such as class, sexuality, dis/ability, race, religion, and citizenship—what is known in academic and activist circles as “intersectionality."
IntersectionAllies features introductions by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, and Dr. Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, author of Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, and artwork by illustrator Ashley Seil Smith. The stories in IntersectionAllies also suggest ways in which friends can support one another, or be an “ally,” despite different positions in life. The authors believe that forward-looking feminism must start with children, and IntersectionAllies shows that children’s literaturecan be the gateway to educating entire households.
Wednesday Aug 07, 2019
Mickey Rapkin, "IT'S NOT A BED, IT'S A TIME MACHINE" w/ Sara Rue
Wednesday Aug 07, 2019
Wednesday Aug 07, 2019
In this clever picture book, a young boy anxious for bedtime discovers his bed is a time machine!
Bedtime means lights out, with dark corners and spooky sounds. But it also means...
Adventure! Because it's not a bed, it's a time machine. Our hero rides it to the coolest time of all--the age of the dinosaurs. He makes a tyrannosaurus-sized friend, who helps him become the Boss of Bedtime.
While tonight's sleep will span millions of years, it'll feel like it's over in the blink of an eye.
Author Mickey Rapkin reads aloud with Sara Rue, an actor, writer and producer known for A Series of Unfortunate Events, Rules of Engagement, and Less Than Perfect.
Friday Mar 15, 2019
Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, "CIRCLE"
Friday Mar 15, 2019
Friday Mar 15, 2019
This book is about Circle. This book is also about Circle’s friends, Triangle and Square. Also it is about a rule that Circle makes, and how she has to rescue Triangle when he breaks that rule. With their usual pitch-perfect pacing and subtle, sharp wit, Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen come full circle in the third and final chapter of their clever shape trilogy.
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019
Jacob Kramer & K-Fai Steele, "NOODLEPHANT"
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019
Famous for her pasta parties, Noodlephant is shocked when the law-loving kangaroos decide noodles are only for them!
Noodlephant won’t let this stand—Noodlephants can’t survive on sticks and branches, after all. Determined to do something to push back against an unjust law, she and her friends invent a machine that transforms pens into penne, pillows into ravioli, and radiators into radiatori. With that, the pasta parties are back! But that very night, the kangaroos come bounding through the door… ready to enforce their unjust laws.
A zany tale full of pasta puns, friendship, and one Phantastic Noodler, Noodlephant, written by Jacob Kramer and illustrated by K-Fai Steele, explores a community’s response to injustice.
Friday Feb 22, 2019
Brontez Purnell, "THE NIGHTLIFE OF JACUZZI GASKET" w/ Beth Pickens
Friday Feb 22, 2019
Friday Feb 22, 2019
Whiting Award-winning author Brontez Purnell’s first children’s book tells the story of a child charged with caring for his baby brother when his mom is out at night.
In The Nightlife of Jacuzzi Gaskett, 11-year-old Jacuzzi is an introspective and imaginative child who loves taking care of his 11-month-old baby brother. When their mom goes out for a date with her boyfriend, he watches his sibling and entertains himself. Readers are taken inside Jacuzzi Gaskett’s precocious mind, where he thinks about the classmates who don’t get him, all the books that have taken him to faraway places, and “sometimes misses his dad.”
Purnell is in conversation with Beth Pickens, an artist, writer, and mother living in Brooklyn.
Tuesday Nov 27, 2018
Elliott Kalan, "HORSE MEETS DOG"
Tuesday Nov 27, 2018
Tuesday Nov 27, 2018
From television comedy writer Elliott Kalan (The Daily Show) and acclaimed illustrator Tim Miller comes a clever and fast-paced comedy of mistaken species identity: Horse Meets Dog.
According to Dog, Horse is just an oversize dog…with funny paws. And Dog… just a tiny, baby horse with a weird tail. That’s what Horse thinks, anyway. Will Dog take a bottle of hay? Why does Horse have such weird paws? Here is what ensues when a Horse and a Dog meet and attempt to figure what the other is all about. The hijinks of these two whimsical characters will have both children and their parents in stitches, and the book’s inherent message of accepting others, differences and all, will resonate long after the last page is turned.
Monday Nov 26, 2018
Andrea Portes, "HENRY & EVA AND THE CASTLE ON THE CLIFF"
Monday Nov 26, 2018
Monday Nov 26, 2018
The Graveyard Book meets The Goonies in author Andrea Portes’s spooky, timeless middle grade debut .
Prominent Environmentalist and Oceanographer Die in Boating Accident
This is the headline that changes Henry’s and Eva’s lives. Their parents, prominent environmentalist William Billings (age 43) and his oceanographer wife, Margo Billings (age 39), disappear mysteriously at sea.
That day is a very, very bad day indeed.
But for Henry and Eva, things are about to go from bad to worse. Their jerk-face uncle (nickname Claude the Clod) and his awful girlfriend (Terri the Terrible) have moved into their big house on the cliff to “take care of them,” but Eva has her doubts about their intentions. All she wants is to put a smile back on Henry’s face, but with Claude skulking around, she can barely come up with a halfway decent joke or song to cheer Henry up (even though that’s her particular specialty).
What Henry and Eva don’t know yet is that they aren’t the only ones in their house who want Claude out of the picture—and when some spooky visitors appear with a message, they realize that their parents’ deaths might not have been as cut-and-dried as everyone thinks.
It’s up to Henry and Eva to discover the truth—but can they do it before the Clod catches them in the act?
Thursday Aug 02, 2018
Elizabeth Gorcey, "READ, READ AND READ"
Thursday Aug 02, 2018
Thursday Aug 02, 2018
Read, Read and Read is the third book in the Liv On Life (LOL) Series. Liv’s love of books proves that a book can be a friend and make a friend! In Going to the Park (the first book in the series) Liv and Bowie (her Boxer doggie) convince their Mom and Dad to put down the technology and head out together for a fun day at the park! And in Green is Good (the second book) Liv and Bowie go on an adventure to an organic farm where they discover the best way to grow Liv’s favorite veggies, and the healthy benefits of eating ‘green’!
The Liv On Life Book Series was inspired by Elizabeth Gorcey’s daughter, Olivia, and the joy she has brought to the lives of her mother and others. In encouraging Olivia to embrace, cherish and use her authentic voice, Elizabeth has realized how much parents can, and must, learn from the purity and honesty of a child's perspective.
Saturday Jul 14, 2018
Junot Diaz, "ISLANDBORN"
Saturday Jul 14, 2018
Saturday Jul 14, 2018
From New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz comes a debut picture book about the magic of memory and the infinite power of the imagination. “Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else. Hers was a school of faraway places.” So when Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember The Island—she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories—joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening—Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: “Just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you.” Gloriously illustrated and lyrically written, Islandborn is a celebration of creativity, diversity, and our imagination's boundless ability to connect us—to our families, to our past and to ourselves.