April 28 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT
PBS Books, in partnership with GPB, is thrilled to present an unforgettable, emotional evening of reading, as the biggest children’s book authors read real pandemic stories submitted by real kids! When author Kelly Yang (Front Desk, New From Here) invited children to write their pandemic stories, she was floored by the tender, hopeful, and resonant stories she got. To date, she’s published over 500 powerful stories on her website! Now Kelly Yang and her author friends Stuart Gibbs, Meg Medina, Jacqueline Woodson, Jasmine Warga, Jeff Kinney, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Margarita Engle are proud to read a wonderful selection of pandemic stories from children all over the world! Let us commemorate the incredible courage and resilience from kids worldwide by celebrating their voices!
To read more stories written by children about their pandemic story visit Kelly Yang’s webpage here. https://www.kellyyang.com/pandemicstory/
About Kelly Yang and her inspirational book Front Desk, New From Here
Front Desk, New From Here is a Kelly Yang’s latest middle grade children’s book based upon her own pandemic experience. As she travelled around the country sharing about her book, she identified the need for children to write their own pandemic story as well.
Kelly Yang is the New York Times bestselling author of the FRONT DESK series, including Front Desk, Three Keys, and Room to Dream, and young adult novels Parachutes and Private Label. Front Desk is Kelly’s award-winning middle grade debut novel about a 10 year old Chinese American immigrant girl who manages the front desk of a motel while her parents clean the rooms. FRONT DESK was awarded the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, was the 2019 Global Read Aloud, and was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a NPR Best Book of the Year, and a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year.
Kelly immigrated to America when she was 6 years old and grew up in Southern California, where she and her parents worked in three different motels. She eventually left the motels and went to college at the age of 13 and law school at the age of 17. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in Political Science, and Harvard Law School. After law school, she gave up law to pursue her passion of writing and teaching children writing. She is the founder of The Kelly Yang Project (kellyyang.edu.hk), a leading writing and debating program for kids in Asia. As a writing teacher for 13 years, Kelly helped thousands of children find their voice and become better writers and more powerful speakers. Before turning to fiction, she was also a columnist for the South China Morning Post for many years. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She has three children and lives in Los Angeles.
