book clubs – Kate Messner

September 24, 2009

THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. Book Club Contest!

Since THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. was released, I’ve heard from a handful of parents, teachers, & librarians who have already tagged it as a choice for their book clubs. This thrills me to no end. Why? Because I love the sense of community and the conversations that book clubs create. So today, I’m announcing…

THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. Book Club Contest!

Would you like to read THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. with your book club? It can be a mother-daughter group, a class literature circle, an after-school book club…any situation where a group of kids (and maybe grownups, too!) get together to talk about books. In cooperation with my publisher, Walker Books for Young Readers, one book club will win all this:

Hardcover copies of THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. for your book club (up to 12 copies!)
Six copies of TREE FINDER: A MANUAL FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF TREES BY THEIR LEAVES by May T. Watts, a great resource for creating your own leaf collections!
GIANNA Z. silicone bracelets and bookmarks for everyone in your book club
GIANNA Z. discussion guide, a recipe for Nonna’s famous funeral cookies, and the "What Kind of Tree Are You?" quiz.
Me…at your book club meeting! If you live nearby, I’ll try to come in person,and if you’re far away, I’ll be there via Skype videoconferencing software to tell you all the juicy stories behind the writing of GIANNA Z. and answer questions.

Here’s how to enter.

Email me at this address: kmessner at kate messner dot com (with no spaces).

In the subject line, write BOOK CLUB CONTEST

In the body of your email, please include:

1. Your name
2. How many kids/adults in your book club?
3. Why would GIANNA Z. be a good choice for your book club? Just a sentence or two is fine. You can learn more about the book, view the trailer, and read reviews here.
4. City and state where you live
5. Your email address, where you’d like to be notified if you win

You must be over 13 to enter. If you’re younger, please have a parent, teacher, or librarian enter for you.

All entries must be received via email by the end of the day on Thursday, October 15th. A winner will be drawn at random from all eligible entries and notified via email after the drawing.

June 15, 2009

Champlain Quadricentennial Book Club at LCMM

I had a fantastic experience at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum this weekend. Museum Educator Sarah Lyman emailed me a few months ago with an invitation. Would I like to participate in a book club for Champlain and the Silent One hosted at the museum? Kids would read the book along with their parents, then come to the museum on the weekend of the Native American Encampment to talk about it and learn more about what Silent One’s life might have been like. Would I be interested in participating? You bet!

The reenactors who took part in the weekend were fabulous educators and spent lots of time showing hands-on displays of everything from cooking utensils to weapons they’d set up on the museum grounds. The kids who attended had great comments and questions during my presentation, and the group was small enough that we actually got to have a discussion — something you can’t really do when you’re talking in front of an assembly of 300 kids. We were still chatting away when the next group started filing into the auditorium for a screening of Dr. Fred Wiseman’s Quadricentennial film 1609: The Other Side of History, so we moved our party outside and talked some more during book signing time.

I was especially impressed with some of the younger readers, or listeners as the case may be, who enjoyed the book as a read-aloud with their parents and older siblings. They had great observations, too, and reminded me that when we write a book and send it out into the world, we can put whatever age range we want on the cover, but that book will find readers of many ages — younger and older than perhaps we’d intended — and some of those unintended readers bring wonderful new perspectives on a story we thought we knew inside and out.

This was the first in a series of summer Quadricentennial events on my calendar. I’ll be reading & signing books at the South Burlington Barnes & Noble from 4-6pm on Friday, July 24th. It’s a "Lake Champlain Weekend" there; right after my event, Mike Winslow of the Lake Champlain Committee will be signing his new book, Lake Champlain: A Natural History.

On July 25th, I’ll be speaking at the League of Vermont Writers summer picnic, along with poet Daniel Lusk, whose new collection of poems explores what’s under Lake Champlain’s surface. I’m intrigued by this idea and can’t wait to hear his talk.

On July 29th, I’ll be giving a presentation for kids & families at the Alburg Public Library. And in August…I’ll be home, enjoying my family and summer and the lake, and gearing up for a busy autumn when The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z is released September 1st.

May 28, 2009January 16, 2022

Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs

Note: Please note that due to the pandemic and lost income, many authors have had to limit or suspend free Q&A sessions and are instead offering paid visits or low-cost author visit webinars. Please reach out to individual authors to request current information!

Welcome to the Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs List! I’m Kate Messner, the children’s author and educator who maintains this site. I started it because I’ve found that virtual author visits are a great way to connect authors and readers, and I realize that many schools facing budget troubles don’t have the option of paid author visits. With that in mind, this is a list of authors who offer free 15-20-minute Q and A sessions with classes and book clubs that have finished reading one of their books.

How does a Skype virtual visit work? Click here to read a blog entry about my students’ virtual visit with the fantastic Laurie Halse Anderson. It includes an overview of how a virtual chat with an author might work, as well as tips for teachers, librarians, & book club organizers to help your virtual visit run smoothly. You can click here to read my first School Library Journal technology feature on virtual author visits, called “Met Any Good Authors Lately? Classroom Visits Can Happen Via Skype” and this follow-up SLJ feature, “An Author in Every Classroom: Kids Connecting with Authors via Skype. It’s the next best thing to being there.”

Authors Who Skype With Classes & Book Clubs (for free!)

The following authors offer free 15-minute virtual chats with book clubs and classes that have read one of their books! (Most also offer more in-depth virtual visits for a fee.) To arrange a virtual visit, check out the authors’ websites for book choices and contact information. Then ask for their books at your favorite bookstore or visit IndieBound to find a store near you!

For Picture Book & Young Chapter Book Readers

Alison Ashley Formento

Christopher Silas Neal

For Middle Grade Readers (Ages 8-12)

Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Julie Berry

Jenn Bishop

Megan Frazer Blakemore

Dori Hillestad Butler

Kimberly Newton Fusco

Amy Butler Greenfield

Bridget Hodder
Sara Lewis Holmes

Amanda Hosch

Jacqueline Houtman

Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Michele Weber Hurwitz

Wendy McLeod MacKnight

Laura Williams McCaffrey

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

Nanci Turner Steveson

For Teen Readers
(Also check out the list of adult authors below; many also work with teens.)

Alison Ashley Formento

Megan Frazer Blakemore

Cheryl Renee Herbsman

Laura Williams McCaffrey

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

For Adult Readers
(Also check out the authors listed above; middle grade & teen novels can be great book club selections!)

Charlene Ann Baumbich

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

For Authors & Illustrators: If you’re an author or illustrator of a traditionally published book who would like to be added, please email me (katemessner books at gmail dot com) with your name, website, and publisher, and whether you write picture books, MG, YA, or adult. For the sake of being clear, traditionally published means published in print by a widely recognized children’s book publisher. I recognize that e-books and self-published titles are also part of the publishing world, but a list that encompasses all of those would simply be too overwhelming for me to maintain. If someone would like to start a list of ebook and self-published authors who Skype, I think that would be great, and I’ll happily link to it here. So again…this is a list of traditionally published authors who offer FREE 15-20 minute Skype chats with classrooms & book clubs that have read one of their books.

If you’re a bookseller or book club member, teacher, or librarian, thanks for stopping by – and feel free to comment with any questions!

May 5, 2009

Lake Champlain Book Club!

The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is an amazing resource for lake history, so when their educators asked if I’d be part of a book club for families, I jumped at the chance. I love the way they’ve scheduled the book club event to coincide with the museum’s Native American Encampment so kids will get to see and touch so many of the things they read about in Champlain in the Silent One — right down to a replica of a birch bark canoe. Here’s the flyer… Feel free to share the link if you know families that might be interested!

katemessner Follow

NYT bestselling author of 60+ books for kids. Educator. Speaker. Adirondack 46er. Passionately curious. Coming soon: THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES (April 2025)

katemessner @katemessner ·

13h

Still processing what an amazing experience it was to read at the White House Hallo-READ event yesterday! More photos to come after I pinch myself again to make sure it was real.

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katemessner @katemessner ·

30 Oct

It's been a wild week but I can finally share that I'll be reading THE SCARIEST KITTEN IN THE WORLD on the White House lawn today! It's part of @POTUS & @FLOTUS's Hallo-READ celebration, and I couldn't be more honored to be invited.
(Photos to come later on!)

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katemessner @katemessner ·

29 Oct

Reading THE SCARIEST KITTEN IN THE WORLD with your kiddos this Halloween? The amazing MacKenzie Haley created some coloring pages you can download! https://katemessner.com/the-scariest-kitten-in-the-world-coloring-pages/

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Rapp Art @rappart ·

25 Oct

New beautiful book covers by @yutaonoda ✨

@KateMessner's The Trouble with Heroes, publishing from @bloomsburykids in April 2025, is a heartwarming novel-in-verse about a boy, a dog, and the healing power of nature.

See more of Yuta's work here: https://rappart.com/artists/yuta-onoda/

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katemessner @katemessner ·

24 Oct

Love seeing these amazing writers in action as they celebrate @writingproject's National Write Out this week! ❤️

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The Scariest Kitten in the World Coloring Pages

Reading THE SCARIEST KITTEN IN THE WORLD with your kiddos? Here are two coloring pages you can share with them, too! The Scariest Kitten in the World Coloring PageDraw your own "Scariest Kitten"

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