Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies and other members of the Wisconsin International Resource Consortium.
This event features award-winning authors and local experts, who will share books focused on folk and fairytales from various world regions. Authors will present mini lectures, engage in a roundtable discussion, and sign copies of their books for attendees.
Who is this for: K-12 educators, librarians, children’s literature enthusiasts
Cost: $25*
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
Rochelle Hassan, author of The Buried and the Bound.
Rochelle Hassan is a middle grade and young adult fantasy author. Her work includes The Prince of Nowhere (HarperCollins, May 2022) and The Buried and the Bound (Macmillan, January 2023). She likes chai, animated films, used bookshops, and traveling light.
As the only hedgewitch in Blackthorn, Massachusetts – an uncommonly magical place – Aziza El-Amin has bargained with wood nymphs, rescued palm-sized fairies from house cats, banished flesh-eating shadows from the local park. But when a dark entity awakens in the forest outside of town, eroding the invisible boundary between the human world and fairyland, run-of-the-mill fae mischief turns into outright aggression, and the danger – to herself and others – becomes too great for her to handle alone.
Leo Merritt is no stranger to magical catastrophes. On his sixteenth birthday, a dormant curse kicked in and ripped away all his memories of his true love. A miserable year has passed since then. He’s road-tripped up and down the East Coast looking for a way to get his memories back and hit one dead end after another. He doesn’t even know his true love’s name, but he feels the absence in his life, and it’s haunting.
Desperate for answers, he makes a pact with Aziza: he’ll provide much-needed backup on her nightly patrols, and in exchange, she’ll help him break the curse. When the creature in the woods sets its sights on them, their survival depends on the aid of a mysterious young necromancer they’re not certain they can trust. But they’ll have to work together to eradicate the new threat
and take back their hometown… even if it forces them to uncover deeply buried secrets and make devastating sacrifices.
Karla Arenas Valenti, author of Loteria (grades 407)
Karla Arenas Valenti is the author of the bestselling and highly-acclaimed middle grade novel, LOTERIA, as well as numerous picture books, chapter books, and upcoming middle grade novels. Her storytelling is seeded in Mexican culture and lore, and often deals in explorations of philosophical and identity-based themes (inspiring the mind) while also taking readers on
riveting magical realist adventures (inspiring the heart).
It is the hottest hour of the hottest day in Oaxaca City when Life and Death walk into town, ready to begin a new game of la Lotería. But first, they need a pawn, a child whose fate will be determined by the winner of the game: a long and prosperous life or an untimely death. Fate finds this child in a robin-egg blue house, tucked beneath a massive jacaranda tree. And so, the game begins.
Every card reveals a new twist in Clara’s fate: a tree, a scorpion, a fateful arrow, a mermaid, a deer, a treacherous rose. But Clara knows none of this. All she knows is that her cousin Esteban has vanished, and she’ll do whatever it takes to save him, traveling to the mythical Kingdom of Las Pozas in her search. And although it seems her fate was sealed as soon as the cards were dealt, Clara just might have what it takes to shatter the game and choose a new path.