When children or teens are the audience, an event works better for the kids when they have read or had read to them at least one of my books or the book(s) to be discussed. They then become engaged in the presentation and will have had a chance to think beforehand about the topic, and any questions they may want to ask or comments they may wish to make.

At most events, children, teens, parents, teachers or library professionals appreciate the opportunity to purchase a book or the books under discussion and to have them autographed. Make sure you arrange with a bookseller or publishers to have books available. This should be arranged several weeks in advance of your event.

Ask your local bookstore to order copies of my books and to come and sell books on the premises. Sometimes, if you ask a local bookstore, it will donate $1 per book to your group. However, not every bookstore can afford to do that.

Or contact the individual publishers: Candlewick Press, Little, Brown & Co., Scholastic, Inc., and Simon & Schuster to arrange to have them ship books to you for sale at your event. Please make sure you do this several weeks in advance of your event.

Each publisher has promotional materials — flyers, reviews, invitations — that they will be happy to send you upon request. Some material can be downloaded from the publishers’ web sites for use at events.

Download the FAMILY LIBRARY information sheet.

Michael Emberley has created art for two sample invitations available from Candlewick Press for IT’S PERFECTLY NORMAL and IT’S SO AMAZING! Permission to use any cover of a book on an invitation needs to be obtained by e-mailing my publishers at www.candlewick.com, www.scholastic.com, www.lb-kids.com, and www.simonsayskids.com. Also, copyright information for the book and for the illustrations needs to be included on any flyers, invitations or promotional material.