The Vermont Book Shop is hosting two authors for readings and book-signings this week. Kids bring your parents this Saturday, to hear Vermont author/illustrator Liza Woodruff read her brand-new picture book, Emerson Barks in a special Saturday storytime, at 10:30 a.m. There will be activities and treats. Ideal for ages 4-8 good thing it’s free!
Thursday, award-winning nonfiction writer Robert Moor will read from his book On Trails at 6:30 p.m. Book-signing to follow. This event is presented in partnership with Middlebury Area Land Trust. All donations collected will directly benefit MALT and the TAM.
Need more info? Call the Book Shop (802) 388-2061 or visit www.vermontbookshop.com.Arf! Arf! Arf! Bird, squirrels, the mailman — Emerson can’t help but bark his loudest when he gets excited. But when his bark scares one of his neighborhood friends into hiding, Emerson’s girl Eva must forbid him from barking altogether. Can Emerson adjust to a life in silence? Or will he find a way to put his powerful bark to good use? A charming dog story that shows how good intentions can triumph over mistakes.
Woodruff is the illustrator of over 20 books for young readers, including If It’s Snowy and You Know It, Clap Your Paws by Kim Norman and The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Elizabeth Bennett. She lives in an old farmhouse in Vermont with her family and their two dogs. Emerson Barks is the first book that she has both written and illustrated.In 2009, while through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others devolve? What makes us follow or strike out on our own? Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the minuscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down Native American trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. This book is the result of those wild perambulations. Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic ? the oft-overlooked trail ? sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions.
Sierra Magazine calls On Trails the “best outdoors book of the year” and the Boston Globe says the book is “(p)art natural history, part scientific inquiry, but most of all a deeply thoughtful human meditation on how we walk through life, Moor’s book is enchanting.”
Moor has written for Harper’s, n+1, New York and GQ, among other publications. A recipient of the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism, he has won multiple awards for his nonfiction writing. He lives in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia. On Trails is his first book.