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Spring time is birthday season in my house.

Over the years we’ve had a “bow wow ball”, a hunt through fairy land and a teddy bear picnic.

So why haven’t I held a party celebrating Middle-Grade books– a “Book Bash”? It wouldn’t be any harder than pouring a box of Cocoa Pebbles in a new dog bowl (it looks just like kibble!)

With these fun projects you’ll have your own literary themed birthday party in the (book) bag! And of course all these ideas can be adapted to your next book launch, too.

1. “Book” a cake. These days a cake that looks like a book is as close as your grocery store bakery department. Pick your child’s favorite middle-grade title, propose your idea to the baker well in advance, and enjoy!

(cake image courtesy of Publix)

2. Books Books and More Books This one’s easy. Hand out books instead of goodie bags.

Also consider this- If your house and your kiddo are already overrun with toys request guests donate a middle grade novel instead of a gift. All the books are placed in a cute book basket and donated to an underserved library or school! (Be sure to clear this option with your generous birthday boy or girl ahead of time!)

3. Book an author!

These days children’s book authors do Skype school visits all the time. Lots of writers Skype with scout troops and book clubs, too. So how about incorporating an author Skype visit into your party? All it takes is some advance planning (authors are often booked up months in advance), a good internet connection, a computer and a screen or monitor large enough to be seen by all (I have a cable that connects my laptop to my tv screen) Just be sure guests are calm and attentive (so this should probably be scheduled before the cake and games!)

You can find many authors who offer free short Skype visits here.

Some writers may be skeptical about Skyping in a party setting but I, for one, love to “attend” any party of avid kid readers- especially those who’ve read my books! I’ll even send bookmarks ahead of time!

4. This is a test!

Ready for some fun and games? How about a trivia contest? First prize, of course, will be books! You can write your own questions or follow the lazy moms’ party precept- why do it yourself when you can steal it from someplace else? Here are links to a hand full of internet kidlit trivia questions. You’ll find a slew more if you Google “children’s book trivia”.

Bill Moyer’s PBS Classics Of Children’s Literature Quiz

Braingle Characters of Children’s Lit Quiz

Scholastic Book-box Questions for National Young Readers Week

 5. Break down and buy the game.

Someone has already done most of the work for you– for the older party crowd, at least. All you have to do is shell out more cash. Check out these literary games:

Trivial Pursuit started it all. Maybe everyone you know isn’t battling to fill their tray with pie pieces these days but of course Trivial Pursuit has a book lovers edition.

There’s also an intriguing game called It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, which challenges your knowledge of first lines   

There’s Book Lover’s Scrabble with extra points for words with a literary twist

Or a cool Book Lovers Edition of Memory Challenge.

Perhaps best of all– a book and a game, all in one. Literary Trivia: Fun and Games for Book Lovers.

Now are you ready to party????? What are your favorite book-ish party ideas?

 Tami Lewis Brown is always ready for a party- especially when it’s celebrating the completion of her next middle-grade novel!

Last month we went to New York City and splurged on seeing a play. We went from the hyper-busy, noisy street, to the theater’s crowded, buzzing lobby, to the doorway of  the theater itself. Inside was dim and quiet. It was a small space, a curtain-less stage. A family’s dowdy living room sat empty and still and waiting. We had to climb to our seats in the next-to-last row, but I didn’t mind, because I had a good view of our fellow play-goers as they too stepped in out of the din and light, paused and blinked and got their bearings. They’d crossed a real threshold. The little theater filled, strangers packed shoulder to shoulder, and even before the lights went down, I felt the deep, the ancient human magic of it. We’d all signed a crazy pact. We’d agreed to leave the rest of the world behind and fall under the spell of a story. We were going to believe in it, if we could. We were going to let it catch us up and whirl us around and—what I am always hoping for—let it change us.

A playwright, even more than a novelist, stops owning her work the moment it’s out in the world. Our books are read, usually, in solitude, the characters’ voices sounding different in each reader’s mind. But actors speak the playwright’s words; directors choose how to play each scene.  It’s an astonishing feat of trust and collaboration, all in the service of story. Sitting in a theater always makes me think of  sitting around a fire, predators prowling the darkness, stars dazzling the sky, but the big world’s been forgotten  as everyone draws close and listens to the man or woman with the magic velvet voice, the story teller. What happens next? We’re all leaning forward, wanting to know. And why? Why does it happen? The older we grow, the more we need our stories to answer that question, too.

I’m working on a new novel now. In singing, there are things called “head voice” and “chest voice”, and from what I gather, the ideal is to blend them together. On days when the writing doesn’t go well, it’s usually because I’m only using what I think of as my head voice. The words vibrate up there, serviceable and doing what they’re supposed to do—move this scene and plot along—but even as I write them, I know I’m going to have to revise them. My chest voice—the voice that draws from my heart—isn’t weighing in, and without it, the words are just words. It will happen, though. For me, a huge part of writing is persisting, believing that if I keep working, the two voices will come together and I will sing my head off. It’s a trust in the story itself: that eventually it will show me the best way to tell it.

When the New York play ended, we wandered out into the lobby. Reluctant to leave yet, we got glasses of wine in the café. We overheard two women at the next table, discussing the play. One of them had loved it and the other was dissatisfied, and before we knew it we were weighing in, the four of us taking stances, offering opinions, sharing lines we’d loved, and by the way, how brilliant was that thing with the wallpaper? The playwright had created a world we still urgently inhabited. We still had a stake in it. Strangers a few minutes before, here we were talking about families, second chances, and, of course, how we felt about the ending.

At last, we buttoned up, pushed open the theater door, stepped out into the blowing snow and blare of taxi horns. But the magic of the play, the story, came along with us. It changed what we noticed, the way we looked at the people rushing by. I can pull it out now, weeks later.

Tricia’s new middle grade novel, Moonpenny Island, will be published by HarperCollins in winter 2015.