We have often said that there is not necessarily a correlation between being a talented author and being a good public speaker, being gracious with people or even, as a matter of fact, being a nice person. We were visited yesterday by an author who combined all these traits (what is a trifecta if it includes four things?? can you have a quadfecta?).
Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, came to Sandwich. He showed up early (we are already feeling good about this signing!). He listened to the middle school band that we had playing in the auditorium prior to the start of the program (called the Rolling Pebbles in case you need to know). When he found out that we had been expecting him to come in through a different door and had a group of students waiting to greet him, he immediately said “Let’s absolutely go back there” so as not to disappoint them. (We are feeling really good about this person at this point).
He gave a funny, interactive and informative talk that appealed to both the adults and the kids in the room (400 of them in the room, by the way). The talk was followed by time for book signing. Here the line went a bit slow….we heard a little grumbling in the crowd about waiting. But…we only saw smiles from people leaving the signing line because of how gracious and attentive Jeff was to each kid he was talking to. One Mom told me that he offered to talk to her son on her cell phone because he couldn’t be there and she was getting his book signed for him (unfortunately no cell reception in the auditorium!). Almost every family took a picture with him.
To top the afternoon off…after signing books for an hour and a half, Jeff Kinney agreed to drive with us to the Bookshop and sign stock copies of his books for us. We hated to be pushy enough to ask, but we have a tradition of getting a picture of every visiting author next to our sign and statue out front. We needed that picture for our author wall! (Ask Vicky sometime how badly we wanted that picture
) But wait…there’s more! He even drew a picture of Greg Heffley for us to hang up in the shop!
What a great example for all of the kids, and adults really, in the audience. Here is an author who has had a book at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year with huge demands on his time (he has a full time job that is not being an author) and he graciously spent time giving us all a little insight into his books. Jeff Kinney set the bar high for future visiting authors and we cannot tell you how much we appreciated his visit.