Carl Hiaasen – Scat
Thursday, January 29, 1:00 PM
At the age of 23, Carl Hiaasen joined the Miami Herald as a general assignment reporter and went on to work for the newspaper’s prize-winning investigative team. Now a weekly columnist, he is the author of many New York Times bestselling books for adults, including Basket Case and Nature Girl. Also bestsellers, his books for young adults—Flush and Hoot—feature feisty, curious kids fighting to beat the corrupt, adult way of doing business. A Newbery Honor book, Hoot was adapted into a major motion picture. Scat features a missing biology teacher, an incompetent detective, and two students determined to find out what happened.

Nikki Giovanni – Bicycles: Love Poems
Friday, February 6, 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM
Poet and educator Nikki Giovanni is the author of approximately 30 books for both adults and children. She was named one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends,” and has received countless honors for her work, including multiple NAACP Image Awards, a National Book Award nomination, and the Langston Hughes Award. Her collection Blues: For All the Changes reached no. 4 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list, a rare achievement for poetry. Giovanni’s poems often focus on race, identity, and the power of an individual to make a difference in him or herself and, in turn, the lives of others.

Naomi Shihab Nye – Book TBD
Friday, February 13, 11:30 AM
Naomi Shihab Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through humanitarian poems about cultural heritage and achieving peace. Poet William Stafford says of her work, “Her poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight… Reading her work enhances life.” Nye is the recipient of Guggenheim and Lannan fellowships, as well as four Pushcart Prizes. She is the author or editor of more than 20 collections of poems and essays, including You and Yours, which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. Nye has travelled to the Middle East and Asia to promote international goodwill through the arts.

Susan Shaw – Safe
Tuesday, March 3, 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM
A native of the Philadelphia area, music educator Susan Shaw tackled the issues of family abuse and mental illness in her acclaimed novels Black-eyed Suzie and The Boy from the Basement, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a “Best Book” for young adults and named a “Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers” by the American Library Association. Deemed “compelling and affecting” by Kirkus Reviews, Safe chronicles a young rape victim’s journey toward healing, aided and empowered by poetry and music.

Neal Shusterman – Everlost
Wednesday, April 15, 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM
Neal Shusterman is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. He has written for the Goosebumps and Animorphs TV series, as well as the original Disney Channel movie Pixel Perfect. He is currently adapting his novel Everlost into a feature film for Universal Studios. Called a “rip-roaring adventure” by School Library Journal, Everlost is a reimagining of what happens after death, and was named a “Best Book” for young adult audiences by the New York Public Library, the International Reading Association, and School Library Journal. 

John Green – Paper Towns
Friday, April 17, 1:00 PM
John Green’s first novel, Looking for Alaska, won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was a Printz honor book. Along with his brother Hank, Green started a video blog called Brotherhood 2.0, which has grown into an internet community of self-professed nerdfighters. Booklist finds Green’s latest novel, Paper Towns, to be “clever and wonderfully witty, but also deeply thoughtful and insightful,” and School Library Journal writes, “Green’s prose is astounding... He nails it—exactly how a thing feels, looks, affects—page after page.”