Meet Raina!

When I was younger my absolute favorite book series in the world was the Babysitter's Club by Ann M. Martin. What's the Babysitter's Club? It's about a group of girls who met weekly to take calls to arrange babysitting jobs for themselves for parents in their neighborhood. They were awesome. When I was a kid that was what I wanted to do.

So imagine my complete happiness when a couple of years ago I discovered that the first four books of the series had been adapted as graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier. Raina is an incredible graphic novelist. She did a fantastic job with the stories. When I read them, it was like I was revisiting my childhood and Raina captured exactly how I imagined the characters to be and seem in her amazing drawings.

Then two years ago she released another book that was even more incredible. Her book Smile is an autobiographical account of her time in middle school. In it she deals with friends (if your friends are mean to you are they really your friends?), family (sometimes mom, dad, and siblings just don't understand), as well as the trauma of unending trips to the dentist to repair her mouth when she knocked out her two front teeth. Raina, in her personal experience, captured the highs and lows (and there are many--at least for me) of middle school and high school. Both boys and girls have enjoyed reading it--a rare treat.

I'm so happy to announce that Raina will be hosting a program for the library called Creating Comics: A Hands-on Workshop. In the program, teens from grades 6-12 will learn about writing stories and making illustrations for comics and then get a chance to start their own. After the program Raina will be signing copies of Smile for them. Each teen who comes will get a copy of Smile to take home with them as a memento of the program. Copies of Smile were generously donated by the Friends of the Library.

This program is being held at Algonquin Middle School in the Library Media Center. A map of where Algonquin Middle School is located can be found here.

When: Thursday, March 22 from 4:30-5:30, book signing to follow
Where: Library Media Center in Algonquin Middle School

Smile
BSC #1 Kristy's Great Idea
BSC #2 The Truth About Stacey
BSC #3 Mary Ann Saves the Day
BSC #4 Claudia and Mean Janine