Adam Rex at Quail Ridge Books

This is the story of an adult fan girl dragging her daughters to an author appearance. Skip, if that sort of thing makes you queasy. And be grateful I haven't run the Pressure Boys pictures yet.

The offspring and I were late to the store, and mores the pity. When we arrived, Adam Rex was drawing a picture, apparently a sort of improv on suggestions from the audience. All the seats were filled, and the audience ages ranged from let's say, 4, up to 65.

He next read one poem from Frankenstein Takes the Cake, "The Bride of Frankenstein Wrote Her Own Vows", and was very funny doing it. Then he answered a few questions from those present. When asked what he likes to draw when he's not illustrating, he told us "robots." He seems like an "I'm thinking about robots" kind of guy.

And then we queued up to get books signed. The Possum got to go first. I introduced her, although since she was the only child her age, I'm sure he had already guessed who she was. He was really sweet, he had her runner-up in the contest book all ready, and then he signed The True Meaning of Smekday for her, and talked to her a little bit. Then Pssst for me, then Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich for the PandaBat. He was a doll, and reminded me very much of a favorite teacher/neighbor who's taking a sabbatical from teaching to write a series of middle school adventure books.

Oh, and the good news, he's currently working on a YA novel. The poetry books are great on all levels, but I thought Smekday was really outstanding.

For Rooie, pictures of the signed books*:

Frankenstein Takes the Cake with Cerberus

Smekday

Pssst with a penguin**

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich

* Because I know she loves Adam Rex as much as I do, and because she loves getting books signed as much as I do, because she introduced me to Rex's books, and because she's the first person I pointed to the haiku contest

** Because of my longstanding affection for penguins combined with the news that the next novel is for even older readers, Adam Rex is now officially my author crush. Neil Gaiman is a fabulous author, but he doesn't illustrate, too.