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Kidlit stars come out on Friday

There was some more last-minute revising at the children’s BOOKED! events on Friday. Author Frieda Wishinsky was scheduled to read to kids in Grades 2 and 3 at Fort York on Friday morning, but was told just before going on that the school had pulled out (on Tuesday) and that she would be reading instead to kids in Grade 7 and 8 – perhaps not the ideal audience for a book aimed at early readers. “I’m a little disappointed,” Wishinsky said simply to the BOOKED organizer. But she proceeded with a talk nonetheless, though she wisely opted not to read from her book. “I can talk to anybody, even a dog,” she said afterward.

Another reading on Friday morning, featuring Martha Brooks, Deborah Ellis, and Susan Juby, was attended by about 75 kids in Grades 7 and 8 and included lively question periods after each reading. Juby got a lot of laughs with a reading from her upcoming fall novel Another Kind of Cowboy.

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Audience member: How come there are so many different ideas in your book [Mistik Lake]?

Martha Brooks: Because it’s about life and that’s what life’s like.

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Audience member: What do you think is the greatest comical book of all time?

Susan Juby: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. Also the Adrian Mole books.

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