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Virtual Program
Date and Time: December 29, 2020, 11 a.m. EST
Price: Members – FREE | Non-Members – Pay What You Choose

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Meet artist and illustrator Jeff Mack for a reading of his new book, JUST A STORY, a related drawing activity, and conversation. What can happen when a boy happens upon a discarded book that transforms a library into an escalating series of near misses and close encounters? With an exuberant art style reminiscent of newspaper comic strips, Jeff Mack brings imagination to life in this riotous tale about the power of reading.

Published by Neal Porter Books / Holiday House, September 2020
JUST A STORY copyright © 2020 by Jeff Mack. Reproduced by permission from Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

★★★★ The Reviews Are In ★★★★

– “Extolling literature’s transportive properties, this picture book follows a child who discovers a magical purple tome at the library. . . . A gently humorous reading adventure.”—Publishers Weekly

– “The deadpan text is a foil for the rowdy artwork, cheery scenes littered with clues for alert viewers: a tree sprouting out of the floor, a lion paw, book covers themed with the coming comical attacks, and a library lady who carries on unflappably throughout the mayhem.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

– “The imaginative power of a story, brought to life.” —Kirkus Reviews

– “While you may think you know where this is going, Mack switches genres, story forms, even physical layouts as he tries every trick in the book (pardon the pun) to distract an avid reader.” —New York Times

Land Acknowledgement

It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are learning, speaking and gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people, who are the indigenous peoples of this land on which the Norman Rockwell Museum was built. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.

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