It’s Our 14th Annual DNA Children’s Literature Festival!
March 26th & 27th 2010
request a brochure and registration form
(include name and mailing address and phone)
The Reading Reptile is proud to present Kansas City’s premier children’s literature festival, featuring the best of the best in kids’ books, living or dead, but usually living. Presenters currently scheduled for 2010 are posted below. (There will be 6 presenters in all.)
A two-day event, DNA LitFest includes a Kids Day (brought to you in association with the Department of Education at Rockhurst University) on Friday, March 26th – a field trip opportunity for grades 1 – 6. (7th & 8th grade are also welcome to inquire.) Kids see two authors in 50-minute sessions. The cost is $6.00 per student. Saturday, March 27th is the Conference Day Spectacular designed for teachers, librarians, artists and writers – or anyone for that matter in love with children’s literature and the art of storytelling. A half-day ticket is $40 and an all-day ticket is $75. Lunches are available.

URI SHULEVITZ

Uri Shulevitz was born in Warsaw, Poland, on February 27, 1935. He began drawing at the age of three and, unlike many children, never stopped. The Warsaw blitz occurred when Mr.Shulevitz was four years old. He vividly remembers public services halting, streets caving in, buildings burning, and a bomb falling into a stairwell of his apartment building one day when he was home.  In 1939, the Shulevitz family fled Warsaw, and for eight years they were wanderers, arriving, eventually, in Paris in 1947. Mr. Shulevitz moved to Israel with his parents and baby brother in 1949…you get the picture – this guy is incredible! Read more about Uri’s life at http://us.macmillan.com/author/urishulevitz.
Uri’s first book, The Moon in My Room, was published in 1963. Since then he has become a legend in children’s books, illustrating over thirty-five books, many of which he also wrote. Among his remarkable books are The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship by Arthur Ransome, for which he won the Caldecott Medal in 1969; The Treasure, a Caldecott Honor Book; Snow, another Caldecott Honor Book; Rain Rain Rivers; Dawn; and most recently, How I Learned Geography – yet another Caldecott Honor Book!
Today, Uri lives in Greenwich Village in New York City.

ADAM REX

Adam Rex is nearsighted, bad at all sports, and usually in need of a shave. He likes animals, spacemen, Mexican food, Ethiopian food, monsters, puppets, comic books, 19th century art, skeletons, bugs, and robots. His first picture book, The Dirty Cowboy, by Amy Timberlake, was published by FSG in 2003. His first solo outing, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, a collection of stories about monsters and their problems, was a New York Times Bestseller. PSSST!, a story about learning to say no when zoo animals ask too many favors, was released in 2007, as was his first novel, The True Meaning of Smekday. His newest picture books include Frankenstein Takes the Cake and the recently released Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem(written by Mac Barnett).
You can learn more about Adam and his work at www.adamrex.com.

BRIAN SELZNICK

Brian Selznick is the author and illustrator of the wildly popular, pioneering, New York Times Bestselling, paradigm-shifting, eye-popping, arm-twisting, life-affirming, barn-burning, door-stopping, hernia-inducing, yet-to-be-banned, soon-to-be-movie-and-action-figure-set and current Mark Twain Award nominee - weighing in at 2.5 pounds - The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and winner of the Caldecott Medal.
Oh, and he also wrote and illustrated some other books.
Alas, he no longer lives in the basement of the Reading Reptile.

KATE KLISE

Kate lives and writes on her 40-acre farm in a valley just north of Norwood, Missouri. Her regular collaborations with her sister, illustrator M. Sarah Klise, have yielded many awards and honors for their strange and wonderful chapter books which include Regarding the Fountain, Regarding the Sink, Regarding the Trees, and the recently released 43 Cemetary Road: Dying to Meet You. Her devastatingly charming picture books include Imagine Harry and Shall I Knit You a Hat? In addition to writing books for young readers, Kate also works as a correspondent for PEOPLE magazine, covering such stories as Timothy McVeigh's execution, baby twins sold over the internet, John Gotti's final days, and a former leper colony in Louisiana....

PATRICIA POLACCO

Patricia Polacco has written and illustrated dozens of beloved picture books, including Thunder Cake, Pink and Say, The Keeping Quilt, and Thank You, Mr. Falker, to name just a few. Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award, a Golden Kite Award, as well as numerous state awards, Patricia has used her success in the service of others as a tireless advocate for literacy programs around the country and an outspoken defender of children with her "Stop the Teasing" campaign.

Judy Sierra wears many-a-hat as a master storyteller, folklorist, puppeteer, Ph.D., and award-winning author of a whole bunch of picture books illustrated by such notables as J. Otto Siebold, Edward Koren, Ariane Dewey and Jose Aruego, Henrik Drescher, and Marc Brown. They include the best-selling Wild About Books, winner of the E.B. White Read Aloud Award, Antarctic Antics, Mind Your Manners, B. B. Wolf, The Gruesome Guide to World Monsters Thelonius Monster’s Sky-High Fly Pie, and the recently released The Sleepy Little Alphabet. It is interesting to note that Judy’s decision to write for children was in part inspired by a lecture she attended in 1986 delivered by no other than…Uri Shulevitz.