Meet the author session by young readers

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 28

Aiming to spread the love for reading among schoolchildren and young adults, the members of  ‘Young Patiala Reads’, a local book club for youngsters, held a ‘meet the author’ event recently. Noted American author Kathryn Erskine was the esteemed guest who interacted with students in an engrossing online session. Erskine has written a total of nine books till now and her next book, ‘My dad is a DJ’, will be out soon. The session was dedicated to Kathryn’s much-acclaimed book “Mockingbird”, that has won around 15 prestigious awards.

The session was attended by Avrita Dang (Class VIII, Apeejay School, Mahavir Marg, Jalandhar), Manasvi Bansal (Class XI, The British Co-ed High School, Patiala), Avraj Manchanda (Class VIII, YPS, Patiala), Aahana Goel (Class VIII, YPS, Patiala), Aishmeen (Class VIII, YPS, Patiala), Issmat Kaur (Class VII, Our Lady of Fatima Convent School, Patiala) and Drishti Goyal.

According to the founder of this book club, Bhavya Garg, the group had an interesting discussion with the American author. Mockingbird is a moving story of an 11-year-old girl with Asperger’s syndrome whose older brother dies in a school shooting and the steps she takes to get closure.

Young readers were fascinated by the author and asked Kathryn questions related to the novel and her journey as a writer. The author also shared some inspiring anecdotes about how she channelled her painful emotions into writing and how she overcame her writer's block. The meeting ended with Kathryn giving advice and writing tips to the members.