Families, Come Meet Children's Authors

Ten noted children’s authors and illustrators, including six from Barrington, will be at Barrington Books on Saturday, Oct 29, for what is being billed as a frightfully festive family event.

It’s the third annual Children’s Books Authors and Illustrators Event from 10 am to 4 pm at the Barrington shopping plaza bookstore. And it has Halloween written all over the day-long event.

Besides the authors and illustrators, the event will feature “many tricks and treats throughout the day, including book signings, costumes, crafts and a spooky story hour,” said Jennifer Massotti, store manager.

“Costumes are encouraged” for the spooky story hour, which starts at 1 pm, she said.

The authors and illustrators will sign books in two-hour blocks of time: 10 am to noon; noon to 2 pm and 2 to 4 pm.

The first block includes Jamie Michalak of Barrington, the author of “Joe and Sparky, Superstars!” and the multiple award-winning “Joe and Sparky Get New Wheels.” She will share the time slot with Alison Paul, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, who just recently released her second book, “Sunday Love.”

The first afternoon block features two Barrington couples and a children’s book publishing professional now writing children’s books.

Anika Denise and Christopher Denise, who collaborated on “Bella and Stella Come Home” and “Pigs Love Potatoes,” will sit with another Barrington couple, RW Alley and Zoe Alley. He is the illustrator of the Paddington series and the book written by his wife, “There’s A Princess In The Palace.”

The couples will be joined by Willa Perlman, who wrote “Pocket Kisses” and “Goodnight World” after a long career with companies such as Hasbro, Golden Books, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

The final afternoon block features Pamela Lowell of Barrington, a clinical social worker who specializes in counseling adolescents and their families. “Returnable Girl” is her first novel; “Spotting Nellie” was released last year.

She will be joined by Liz McGrath, a New England illustrator whose work can be seen in “The Ghouls Go Haunting One by One,” and Sarah L. Thomson, of Portland, Maine, whose most recent work, “Mercy, The Last New England Vampire,” uses as a backdrop the vampire legend in Exeter, RI.

Barrington Books is celebrating its 25th anniversary year in business with a series of events for families and their children.