{"id":27461,"date":"2018-10-19T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27461"},"modified":"2018-10-19T08:00:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T12:00:04","slug":"howling-for-dog-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=27461","title":{"rendered":"Reluctant No Longer: Readers Howl for the Dog Man Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we had the immense privilege of hosting a stop on Dav Pilkey\u2019s hilarious \u201cHowl with Laughter\u201d tour. And I\u2019ll tell you that over the course of the three events, there was plenty of howling to be heard \u2026 punctuated with screaming, shrieking, wailing, and even hyperventilating. I\u2019ve never seen anything quite like it. But, of course, that’s the magic of Dav Pilkey. His signature blend of exuberant silliness; a goofy, unintimidating cartoon style; and unabashedly juvenile humor speaks to kids in their own language and slyly builds\u00a0avid readers\u00a0where reluctant ones\u00a0sat before.
\nBecause he\u2019s a great sport, and we wanted to get him in front of as many kids as possible, Dav Pilkey allowed us to pack his day with three back-to-back events for almost\u00a04,500 Austin readers. Honestly, it was a huge thrill to see so many emerging readers, many of whom who have probably heard the word \u2018reluctant\u2019 thrown around, completely and utterly losing their minds over books.\u00a0
\nFor me personally, this was also really the first time I got to witness the magic of a book event firsthand as a parent of a young awestruck reader. Of course I\u2019ve brought my kids to events before, and it has been wonderful.\u00a0We\u2019ve just never experienced one with this level of built-in anticipation and engagement. You see, my first-grader has recently become a full-fledged Dog Man superfan, sleeping with the books in his bed and carefully producing book after book of\u00a0stapled together\u00a0Dog Man cartoons that he dispenses to anyone willing to take them. Featuring how-to cartoons in the back of all these books is such a neat trick, hooking kids with irresistibly kid-oriented storytelling before empowering them to unleash their pens and continue the adventures on their own.
\nAfter a hilarious presentation filled with puns, pranks, and plenty of potty humor (obviously), the kids got the chance to secure some truly awesome prize packs, and that\u2019s when things really kicked up a notch. Many of the packs were simply raffled during the greeting line portion of the event, but first \"\"<\/a>there was a chance to win a few in a little drawing game. As Dav Pilkey sketched his best-known characters and\u00a0challenged\u00a0kids to name them, eager shouts from the audience escalated with each figure that appeared on the page, from Harold and George to 80-HD to Little Petey, but then\u00a0his magic pen began to outline its final figure. As the basic shape of a canine nose took form,\u00a0hundreds and hundreds of kids\u00a0leapt precariously up onto their chairs, gesticulating wildly while a shrill, high-pitched shrieking filled the air (and 1000 adult eardrums\u00a0threatened to burst). Yes, my friends, I\u2019m here to tell you that Dog Man himself was suddenly on the page\u2014in all his two-dimensional glory. Don\u2019t be embarrassed if the very idea of\u00a0finding yourself\u00a0in his presence made you scream uncontrollably for a second as you read this. It turns out you\u2019re not the only one!
\nI realized after the fact that I think this was collectively the largest crowd we\u2019ve pulled together in one day for a kids\u2019 book event\u2014other than the midnight release of\u00a0Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows\u00a0<\/em>or a large community festival\"\"<\/a>. Of course, events can be magical at any size, and we\u2019ve all witnessed those moments at events when something visceral and magnetic suddenly connects everyone around a\u00a0certain story. It just\u00a0reaches a particular\u00a0fever pitch when\u00a0it happens with this many kids in one space. As our Kids\u2019 Events Coordinator, Eugenia Vela, texted me during an exceptionally electrifying sneak peek\u00a0at\u00a0Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild:<\/em>\u00a0\u201cThe gasping that takes over the room gives me life.\u201d
\nMy own son stayed up ridiculously late reading Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas<\/em> in his room when we came home. As\u00a0he went off to school the next day with his brand-new Dog Man watch on his wrist (thanks, Dav!), I was the coolest to him I\u2019ve ever been\u2014just for connecting him with this incredible book experience. And I know that I wasn\u2019t the only Austin parent or teacher watching a reader come into his or her own that day. It turns out reading really DOES give you superpowers! Who knew?!
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An electrifying experience with Dav Pilkey, his magic pen, and 4,500 fans in Austin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}