Kid Lit Cartoonists Plan September Fundraisers for Moore, OK, School Libraries

Later this month, cartoonists Jeff Kinney, Dav Pilkey, Lincoln Peirce, and Stephan Pastis will present “Drawn Together: Cartoonists Benefit Moore, Oklahoma School Libraries,” two fundraising events for the city of Moore, OK, in which the kid lit stars will discuss their inspiration and creative processes and answer questions from the audience. Moore was hit directly hit by an EF-5 tornado on May 20, which destroyed two elementary schools and partially collapsed a third.

The event, which will run at Tulsa’s Cox Business Center on September 27 and at the Lloyd Novel Center in Norman on September 28, is the brainchild of Jeff Kinney, award-winning author/illustrator of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, who wanted to help Moore’s kids and teachers regain a sense of normalcy after the tragedy.

Kinney reached out to friends and fellow book creators Dav Pilkey of the “Captain Underpants” series, Lincoln Peirce of the “Big Nate” series, and Stephan Pastis of the “Timmy Failure” series, who all signed on without hesitation. All proceeds will benefit the Moore Public Schools Foundation for rebuilding the three school library collection that were damaged or completely destroyed by the tornado.

The two events are sponsored by Tulsa City-County Library, TulsaKids Magazine, Universal Uclick, GoComics, The Preservation Framer, The Metropolitan Library, The Pioneer Library, Scholastic Books, Abrams Books, HarperCollins Publishers, and Candlewick Press.

“These authors have never been together under one roof before,” says Gary Shaffer, Tulsa City-County Library’s Chief Executive Officer.  “This is going to be an awesome event for a most worthy cause.  It’s exciting to present these best-selling authors in Tulsa for the first time and to share in the rebuilding of school libraries.  Libraries Change Lives.”

The event will include the sale of autographed books—200 donated from each author’s publishing company—along with one-of-a-kind posters featuring artwork from each author. There will also be raffles of autographed original artwork from each author and other cartoonist memorabilia.