Last week I helped chaperone my child's class trip to the library to see author Shannon Hale and illustrator LeUyen Pham talk about Best Friends, the follow-up to Hale's graphic memoir Real Friends (also illustrated by Pham). The two are frequent collaborators -- Princess in Black, anyone?! -- and their real-life friendship came through in their spirited presentation to a couple of hundred fourth graders from various schools across the city.

Topics included: friendship, peer pressure, REJECTION (as Hale unfurled her taped-together dozens of early rejection letters), creativity, roller coasters (real and metaphorical), and more. Thanks to Porter Square Books and the Porter Square Books Foundation for providing copies of the book (signed!) to all the students, to the Cambridge Public Schools and to my school's specials teachers who organized the trip, and of course to the Cambridge Public Library for hosting!