Klindt’s Soiree features children’s authors

Visiting children’s authors include:

Nancy Garham Attebury and Joan Gilbert Madsen, author and illustrator of Twas the Night Before Round-Up

Dennis McGregor, author of Dream Again

David Shapiro, author of Flowers by Number, Tool Time and Terra Tempo, a graphic novel series.

The event will also feature Shelley Hinkle from Why Not? Hinkle will also be offering her unique vintage-style hand-sewn children’s clothing along with Nicole Keim from Marmalade, whose latest accessories will be on offer as well.

Shapiro will be on hand for the event with a trio of engaging books from Craigmore Creations:

“Terra Tempo: The Four Corners of Time.” Have you ever wondered how to get kids to see learning as a great adventure, or to make the world’s history as interesting to your child as the plot of their favorite movie? Look no further: the team behind the graphic novel series “Terra Tempo” has it covered.

Written as an epic adventure story featuring three elementary school students who eagerly seek out adventure in the form of time travel, “Terra Tempo’s” second installment, “The Four Corners of Time,” takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the prehistoric past while providing an educational experience that’s equal parts fun and engaging.

Our main heroes — Jenna, Caleb and Ari — are each given ample room to exert their distinct personalities and unique passions throughout the story. These kids are by no means cardboard cut-out characters and, with the help of Christopher Herndon’s beautiful, expressive illustrations, leap out full-force as they fight and misunderstand one another, ultimately coming together to resolve their differences and learn from their mistakes.

The dialogue is smart, while pace and plot combine to make a satisfying, thoroughly enjoyable read.

“Tool. Time. Twist” is an entertaining and “brief trip through tool time” from the age of sticks and stones to the era of the multi-tool and all those new developments have meant to the development of humanity.

“From the deep sea to outer space, from the backyard to the playground, tools allow us to build, take apart, and rebuild the objects we love to live, work, and play with,” Shapiro writes.

The text is accompanied by entertaining illustrations by Christopher Herndon. This would be a great choice for any child who loves to take things apart and see how they work.

“Flowers By Number: Little Naturalist” is a counting book that anyone from the Pacific Northwest could identify with. From skunk cabbage to Columbia lily, “Flowers” teaches children how to identify many of the blooms they might find along a woodland hike in our part of the globe. The counting comes from the number of blooms, number of leaves, number of petals and number of flowers growing together.

The book includes colorful and delicate illustrations by Hayley Vair.

Also featured at the event are:

“‘Twas the Night Before Round-Up,” is a popular Pendleton Round-Up children’s book. An adaptation of the classic ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, it is now out in paperback.

When powerful horses dressed in silvery tack sweep into the arena, four energetic cowkids grab reins, swing onto the mounts and ride like the wind. The cowkids showcase their skills in pole bending, bronc riding, calf roping and more. In the end the cowkids face a choice to stay in the arena or stay with the horses and “answer the call to dash away, fly away, zip away all.”

In addition to the book signing at Klindt’s, illustrator Nancy Madsen and Joan Attebury will be presenting their writing and illustration workshop to area schools, including Dufur and Mosier Schools.

“Dream Again.” Winnie the Pooh may have lived in the Hundred Acre Wood and Peter Pan was from Neverland, but the heroine of the children’ s book “Dream Again” had her adventures someplace a little more familiar: The Dalles.

The heroine’s name is Annie, a spunky 18-year-old orphan looking for a fresh start at the end of the Oregon Trail. When her beloved family quilt gets washed away in the Deschutes River crossing, she leaves her wagon train to search for it and ends up in nineteenth-century The Dalles.

“There are some illustrations of how I imagined it to be, and there is even a scene where she is spying on the Indians as they are fishing at Celilo Falls,” said author and illustrator Dennis McGregor. It is fitting that the storyline revolves around a quilt, because it was a poster for a quilt show that inspired the book. McGregor, a painter, created original artwork for years for the posters for the annual Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters.

The most popular poster he ever made featured a group of wagons with patchwork quilt covers.