Authors delight audiences at IRA’s 52nd Annual Convention

A daily review of convention news from the staff of Reading Today

 Despite Lemony Snicket’s propensity for doom and gloom, there was a series of fortunate events for hundreds of convention-goers Wednesday who had the opportunity to hear featured speaker Daniel Handler, creator of the character Lemony Snicket, as well as featured authors Katherine Paterson and Esme Raji Codell, who spoke earlier in the day.

Handler said he began his literary career while working as an administrative assistant at the City College of San Francisco in its computer lab, where he read all the local “tiny newspapers.” They were filled with stories about trash collection or zoning hearings and parking issues. So, for his amusement and to pass the time, he would write letters to the editor. They all began “How dare you...” and he would go on to berate the bureaucratic perpetrators of governmental foolishness.

He also felt compelled to counteract the pernicious practice of boring, pedagogical children’s fiction that always has an instructional moral. When he was 10 years old, he used to throw such books against the wall of his bedroom. Books about plucky youngsters who overcome feelings of low self-esteem, disabilities, drug addiction, and bad families particularly annoyed him. He preferred Agatha Christie and V.C. Andrews, he said. Hence, the Series of Unfortunate Events was born as an antidote to the overdose of moralistic optimism in children’s writing.

Throughout his presentation, the audience laughed at his sardonic observations and at one point, he led them in a rousing “liberal, humanist” chorus of “Amens” and “Hallelujahs.”

During the question and answer period that followed his talk, an audience member wanted to know if the end was really the end—referring to the 13th and final book of the Lemony Snicket’s Unfortunate Events series. He replied, “Are you talking about your own life, madam?” He went on to say that Lemony Snicket likely would resurface in another form, apart from Unfortunate Events.

Handler’s session was held in the afternoon in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, where featured authors Katherine Paterson of Bridge to Terabithia fame and Esme Raji Codell, author of Viva la Paris, spoke. Codell read from her book about Paris, a fifth-grade African-American girl living in Chicago with her parents and four older brothers.

Katherine Paterson, who has won numerous literary awards, also delighted the audience and told about meeting Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden when she was honored with the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award last year. The $640,000 prize is the world’s largest children’s and youth literature award.