Geoff Rodkey's Blog, page 3
October 28, 2015
The Official Tapper Twins Scavenger Hunt!
Thanks to the good people at Little Brown Young Readers, now you can create your very own Tapper-Twins-themed scavenger hunt in your local library and/or bookstore! Just download this handy PDF, print one out for everybody who’s playing, and have at it!
(No purchase necessary. Library and/or bookstore not included.)
October 5, 2015
Tapper Twins Tales From Times Square!
Like most comic novels for middle graders, the Tapper Twins books are illustrated—but they’re unusual in that most of the illustrations aren’t drawings, but photographs.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that I can’t draw my way out of a paper bag. Even my stick figures look incompetent. And not funny-incompetent. Just incompetent-incompetent.
The second is that the photos work well with the premise: that the books are oral histories compiled by twelve-year-old Claudia Tapper from interviews with her friends. Like most tweens I know, if Claudia wants to visually document something, she pulls out a phone and snaps a pic…like this one of her family’s Upper West Side apartment building:
When I first had the idea to photo-illustrate the books, I can’t tell you how exciting it was to realize I could compensate for my total lack of artistic talent by using my phone. By then, I was nearly finished writing The Tapper Twins Go To War (With Each Other), so its illustrations came from a hodgepodge of sources—stock images, photos my son and I took around New York, the iconic Alfred Eisenstaedt “V-J Day” photo that I paid WAY too much money to license, and a dozen screenshots from a fictional video game called “MetaWorld,” which may look vaguely familiar to fans of a currently popular game that also begins with “M”:
But in the sequel, The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York (about a scavenger hunt gone horribly awry), Claudia and her friends’ photo-taking is integral to the plot, and staging the photos was almost as important as the actual writing.
Which is how I wound up slugging my friend Trevor while wearing an off-brand Cookie Monster costume in the middle of Times Square:
Wait, I missed a couple of steps. Let me back up: at one point in the book, Claudia witnesses a fight between two costumed characters in Times Square—which I wrote into the story partly because it seemed like it’d make for a great series of photos.
Unfortunately, it was also logistically challenging. Here’s a fun fact: did you know it’s cheaper to buy an off-brand Cookie Monster costume than it is to rent one? I now own two. And I no longer have to worry about what I’m going to wear on Halloween for the next decade.
Then there was the issue of who would wear the costumes. Since I planned to take the photos myself, I needed two actors, and my budget didn’t allow me to actually pay anyone. So I recruited my wife and 12-year-old son, primarily because my 10-year-old was too short for the costume, and my 14-year-old adamantly refused to have anything to do with the endeavor.
We headed up to Times Square early on a Sunday morning, and at first it seemed like a fun family outing! Here are my wife and son suiting up in the plaza:
Then we started shooting, and the trouble started. It turns out that if you put on a costume in Times Square, tourists will assume you’re there to pose for photos with them. And when they don’t speak English, it’s VERY hard to explain that you’re not that kind of character. In the end, it was less of a hassle to just let them take the photos so they’d quit bugging us:
The second—and much more crippling—problem was the actors I’d chosen. It wasn’t just that they barely fit in the costumes. It was that my wife can’t throw a punch, and my 12-year-old’s attitude was terrible. He was convinced someone he knew was going to see him, despite our pointing out that A) he was unrecognizable as anything but a knockoff Cookie Monster, and B) nobody who actually lives in New York EVER goes to Times Square unless they absolutely have to, and certainly never on a Sunday morning. So my kid spent the entire shoot standing motionless like a statue, with muffled moans of “Can we stop now?” emanating from underneath his giant blue head as my wife poked him with the lamest fake punches I’ve ever seen:
So I had to reshoot. Fortunately, my friend Trevor is not only game for just about anything, but works near Times Square—and so does Trevor’s wife’s equally game cousin, Jesse, who agreed to take the photos while Trevor and I went at each other. We convened at 8:00am on a Thursday and got a bunch of great shots, including this one capturing the stunned reaction of some guy on his way to work:
Unfortunately, we had to wrap up early when a deranged loiterer chased us from the square while threatening us with ACTUAL violence, as opposed to the fake version we were staging. But that’s a story for another time…and probably a less kid-friendly web site, because the things he was yelling at us were pretty inappropriate.
Hope you like The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York! And if you visit Times Square, keep an eye out for deranged loiterers! It’s a lot safer than it used to be…but it’s still Times Square.
(Many thanks to the good people at Nerdy Book Club, where this post originally appeared.)
October 2, 2015
The Tapper Twins Guide to the Wildlife of New York City!
Claudia and Reese’s latest video is a helpful guide to New York City’s vast array of exotic, glamorous, and occasionally disgusting wildlife: pigeons, rats, cockroaches, celebrities, Times Square cartoon characters…et cetera.
Check it out below! With many, many thanks to the extremely talented Adrian Palacios and everybody else at Little Brown who helped make this so awesome:
September 15, 2015
FREE PIZZA! At the TAPPER TWINS TEAR UP NEW YORK launch party!
You know what’s great? FREE PIZZA!
You know what else is great? THE TAPPER TWINS TEAR UP NEW YORK — the hilarious, chock-full-of-photos sequel to the New York Times bestseller THE TAPPER TWINS GO TO WAR (WITH EACH OTHER)!
And if you drop by
Books of Wonder at 18 West 18th Street at 6:00pm on September 29th
, you can enjoy BOTH of these things!
Along with an (optional) in-store scavenger hunt! Which, unlike the scavenger hunt in THE TAPPER TWINS TEAR UP NEW YORK, will hopefully not cause a riot. (At least not in the pejorative sense of the word.)
PLUS, I’ll regale you with behind-the-scenes photos and anecdotes from the making of the book! Including:
– The terrifying story of my near-assault at the hands of a deranged loiterer in Times Square while wearing an off-brand Cookie Monster costume
– The best Lower East Side tailor to use when custom-designing T-shirts for a 9-inch-tall school mascot
– Why forcing my 12-year-old to serve as a photo model against his will was, all things considered, probably not the best choice for either the book or our relationship (and who I found to replace him for the reshoots)
If you can’t make it out for what I promise will be the best free pizza available within delivery range of 18th Street and 5th Avenue, you can still
order an autographed copy from Books of Wonder OR
get a copy from a different purveyor of quality children’s literature
and enjoy what I guarantee is the ABSOLUTELY BEST photo-illustrated comedy about a New York City scavenger hunt gone horribly awry that you’ll read all year!
And be sure to check out
TapperTwins.com
for a ton of fun content – including the hilarious Tapper Twins Video Guide To The Wildlife Of New York City, which my publisher swears they’re going to post any day now!
Hope to see you on the 29th!
Geoff
PS: if you ABSOLUTELY CAN’T WAIT until the 29th to see me in person, come by my panel discussion on Sunday, Sept. 20th at 11:00am at the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Youth Stage. You have no idea how grateful I’ll be to see you there. (Seriously.)
PPS: if you live anywhere near Houston, Texas, come by the Tweens Read Festival on Saturday, October 3rd to meet me, Lemony Snicket, and 20 other children’s book authors who are much more famous than I am!
June 8, 2015
The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York!
Look what’s available for preorder!
From Powell’s…
…and Books-A-Million!
I promise you this is the funniest book you’ll ever read about a scavenger hunt across New York City…
…that incorporates plush-toy school mascots…
…horribly mangled plush-toy school mascots…
…non-mangled plush-toy school mascots in the vicinity of famous NYC landmarks like Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain…
…a fistfight between Times Square cartoon characters….
…and a mass riot of 12-year-olds (photo not available due to budget constraints) all clamoring to win front-row seats at Madison Square Garden!
The Tapper Twins Tear Up New York arrives in stores September 29th…but if you want to avoid the mass riot of 8-to-12-year-olds that will likely accompany its release, you can preorder now and have it delivered to your door when it comes out! Here are those links again:
And if you want to read a preview of the opening chapters, head over to TapperTwins.com.
See you in September!
April 29, 2015
What’s That Clinging To The Bottom Of the NYT Bestseller List?
You have to squint to see it…but it’s there. Yay!
Many, many thanks to everyone at Little Brown Young Readers, without whose heroic efforts this never would’ve happened — especially Andrea Spooner, Liz Casal, Megan Tingley, Andrew Smith, Melanie Chang, Emilie Polster, Lisa Moraleda, Russ Busse, Deirdre Jones, Victoria Stapleton, Kristin Dulaney, Allegra Green, and anybody else I forgot…
April 13, 2015
The Tapper Twins Video Guide To Life In New York City!
Okay, this is pretty much the coolest thing ever: the first of three animated videos starring the Tapper twins.
In this one, Claudia and Reese explain just what’s so weird about growing up in New York City:
Many, many thanks to Adrian Palacios and the good people at Little Brown who made this so awesome.
April 9, 2015
Hey, Chicago/San Francisco/LA: come see me!
THE TAPPER TWINS GO TO WAR (WITH EACH OTHER) is in stores now! Which is nice.
And I’m going on a short book tour! Which will also be nice…but only if people show up to the events. Sooooooo here’s the list:
CHICAGO:
Monday, April 13 — 7:00 pm — Anderson’s Bookshop — Naperville, IL
Tuesday, April 14 — 4:30 pm – Niles Public Library — Niles, IL
SAN FRANCISCO:
Thursday, April 16 — 4:00 pm – Burlingame Public Library — Burlingame, CA
LOS ANGELES:
Sunday, April 19 — 12:00 pm — LA Times Festival of Books — Los Angeles, CA (USC campus) – YA Stage (panel discussion w/Mac Barnett, Jory John, Mo O’Hara, and Leila Howland)
It’ll be fun! The events are free, I tell a lot of jokes, and I swear I won’t make you feel guilty if you don’t buy a book. Although if you’re going to go to all the trouble of coming out, I mean…y’know…
Hope to see you next week!
March 19, 2015
Hey, look, it [WAS] a book party!
Okay, it wasn’t technically a party. It was a “launch event.”
But it was fun! Here are some pictures:
Many, many thanks to the great folks at Books of Wonder on West 18th Street. And they have a TON of autographed copies of THE TAPPER TWINS GO TO WAR! If you want one, stop by the store or click here to order online.
Hey, look, it’s a book party!
Okay, it’s not technically a party. It’s a “launch event.” The difference being, I guess, that there’s no open bar. Which makes sense, because it’s a children’s book.
Anyway, EVERYBODY’S INVITED! If you’re anywhere near West 18th Street in NYC on Tuesday, April 7th, please drop by. It’ll be fun! I think I’m going to show a PowerPoint.
I know: PowerPoint doesn’t exactly say “fun.” But this one will be. Or so I hope.
