{"id":31534,"date":"2019-11-12T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T12:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=31534"},"modified":"2019-11-12T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T12:10:11","slug":"mother-bruce-rocks-pajama-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=31534","title":{"rendered":"Mother Bruce Rocks Pajama Night!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have known since I read his first adventure in 2015 that Pajama Night needed Mother Bruce. It must be. It was destined to be. And in 2019 it was!<br \/>\nMallett School\u2019s Prime Time Reading, aka Pajama Night, is still, for 13 years running now, my favorite event of the year. How could it not be? After all, it has some of the best ingredients an event could have: a shared love of reading, widespread community support and partnerships, great authors, a great crowd, amazing decorations, and pajamas.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><\/div>\n<p>Here\u2019s how it works: the Mallett community comes back to school at 6:00 in the evening\u00a0\u2013 parents, kids, teachers, librarian, principal, all dressed in pajamas for an evening of read-alouds. I produce a children\u2019s book author. The evening starts with that author reading his book to the assembled throng in the gymnasium, which has been lavishly decorated around the book\u2019s theme. Afterwards, families can either go listen to one of five different community readers in five different classrooms, read together in the gym, or purchase a book and have the guest author sign it. The evening ends with the author reading a second book to the whole audience and then concludes with goodnights and more book signing.<br \/>\nWhen beloved Mother Bruce author Ryan Higgins arrived he was greeted thus.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/welcom-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-31539\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/welcom-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThe decorations for Pajama Night are always stellar. This year Mallett School librarian Arika Galkowski outdid herself.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/decorations-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-31537\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/decorations-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nI Know what you are thinking. &#8216;That&#8217;s awesome but did Arika make a working goose catapult for the event?&#8217;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/slinggoose-1-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31547\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/slinggoose-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a>Of course she did! Soon it was time for instructions and Mallett&#8217;s wonderful principal Tracy Williams kicked things off.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tracyintro-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31536\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tracyintro-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>The kids were crazy excited to hear from the creator of Mother Bruce. Was there any crowd control?<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/sign-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31544\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/sign-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>Next we were treated to the newest Mother Bruce, <em>Bruce&#8217;s Big Storm<\/em>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/crowd-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31540\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/crowd-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>Then it was time for some book signing. Ryan took the time to draw Bruce for each young bear lover. And there were many!<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/happysignee-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31545\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/happysignee-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/signing2-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31546\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/signing2-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/signingline-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31548\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/signingline-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/booktable-1-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31549\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/booktable-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a>Then everyone came back into the gym hear and see Ryan read aloud his popular book <em>We Don&#8217;t Eat Our Classmates.<\/em> But first it was time for a prize drawing to see who had won a gift certificate to the bookstore.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drawing-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31541\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/drawing-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/winner-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31543\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/winner-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/winnerdrawsnear-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31542\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/winnerdrawsnear-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" \/><\/a>After that it was time to go back outside and sign more books. Ryan stayed a whole extra hour until the last book was signed.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/lastsign-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31550\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/lastsign-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1066\" \/><\/a>It was another great Prime Time Reading year thanks to Ryan, the Mallett community, especially Arika and Tracy, and lots of folks from Ryan&#8217;s publisher, especially Derek from Hachette, and Christine from Disney. Thanks everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan Higgins catapults our 2019 Prime Time Reading Event to a new rubber goose level. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31534","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\/31534","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}