Jasmine: Lemony Snicket Event

Children's Event Manager, Jasmine, tell us about the fantastic Lemony Snicket event held earlier this week...

The 13^th January 2010, Edinburgh, the Queen’s Hall, 800 pupils, intently waiting for the American best-selling author Lemony Snicket. When he arrived, he apologised that Lemony Snicket couldn’t make it along today, due to an unfortunate event. But then who was…how…what?

A thoroughly confused audience enjoyed the next 45 minutes of dark, surreal humour, lots of EAP* (if you don’t know what that means then, in Mr Snicket’s words, just ‘look it up’) and even a song.

Lemony Snicket is the author of the of the hugely successful A Series of Unfortunate Events book, all 13 of them, as well as the Beatrice Letter and a selection of other titles. He’s sold 6 million copies in the UK alone, not talking of the 60 million in another 40 countries all over the world. The first three books of the series have been made into a blockbuster movie titled A Series of Unfortunate Events starring Jim Carry as Count Olaf (he has his own website – check it out).

This was Mr Snicket’s first time in Scotland – he was scheduled to do an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival six years ago, but had to cancel last minute. The atmosphere at the Queen’s Hall was buzzing – lots of questions about the mysterious man, pupils reading while they waiting to get their books signed and photographers milling about waiting to get their shot. We had a fantastic day!

We filmed the event and are hoping to put it on our website in a couple of week’s time – do watch this space for more information. For the time being you’ll be able to check out some of the pictures we took at the event and read about it in the paper.

*Eurythmic Auditory Participation.

Other News:

A.G.Taylor's Meteor Strike has been shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize.

We're hosting an event with A.G. Taylor on 4th February. There are still places left. See our events pages for details.

Check out our new Q&A with Australian author Lili Wilkinson. She was interviewed by Amy - one of our teen book reviewers - during last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.