NEW YORK (June 11, 2002) - HarperCollins Children's Books announced today that New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman will launch his first-ever novel for children, Coraline (July 2002; $15.99; ages 8 up), in the Bay Area.
Cody's Books of Berkeley will host the exclusive West Coast launch event on Tuesday, July 2 at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.) at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley on 2345 Channing Way.
Starting at 6:30 p.m., Gaiman will do a rare complete reading of Coraline, which has been called "bittersweet and playful" (San Francisco Chronicle), "magnificently creepy" (Kirkus Reviews) and is being likened to a modern-day Alice in Wonderland. Signed copies of Coraline, selected backlist titles and audio will be available for sale at the event.
Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children, and go on sale beginning June 17 at both Cody�s Books locations (2454 Telegraph Ave. at Haste; 1730 Fourth St.); www.codysbooks.com; telephone orders to 510-845-7852; email orders to info@codysbooks.com. All major credit cards are accepted. The purchase of a ticket entitles the holder to a $3 discount on Coraline books and audio.
A separate East Coast launch event for Coraline is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 11 at Barnes & Noble, Union Square in New York City. There will be no other U.S. events until the fall.
And going mainly from feedback from here, we've elected to make this one a reading, rather than a signing. So it'll be three hours of comfortably listening to a story, rather than five hours of standing in a long line for thirty seconds of hello. We'll have an interval half-way through, in case any of the kids can't keep going, and for people to get lemonade and cookies etc.
As you can see, it's a ticketed event, to cover the cost of renting the hall, but the tickets are cheap and easy to get (and will count against the purchase of a Coraline). We also got somewhere with enough seating that we're not worried about it selling out.
Spread the word across the West.