The Maine Student Book Award Celebration (MSBAC) takes on a decidedly cryptozoological flavor this year.

As you read this, I’m in northern Maine, in a secret location filled with librarians and children, getting ready or presently talking about cryptozoology, cryptids, and leading workshops with the kids on casting footprints during a full-day gathering.

Actually, other than kidding about the “secret location,” all the rest is true. The MSBAC is occurring on Monday, May 5, 2008, in Penobscot, and I’m there right now, as this is being remotely posted. I’m on site with their out-of-state guest of honor, Kelly Milner Halls, author of Tales of the Cryptids. Her book is one of this year’s honorees on the Maine Student Book Award list.

Milner Halls is there as a whole group presenter and will also be doing smaller group workshops on masks.

I’m a guest speaker, as well, as her book contains two pages about me being a cryptozoologist, I’m seen (in some quarters) as an expert on the topic, and I added the extra of giving a Maine connection to the celebration. The Maine librarians discovered I was in Maine thanks to a book by a children’s author living in Spokane, Washington State. Discoveries have happened in strange ways, I guess.

Books, librarians, and children go well together. Chosen for the 2001 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults List by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and American Library Association (ALA), my book, Cryptozoology A to Z is a foundation volume on the topic loved by young (and old) people. (Parents have told me it was this book that helped their resistant-reader-child begin to enjoying real books.)

Cryptozoology A to Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1999)

Kelly Milner Halls’ book has received wonderful praise from me for years. It contains descriptions of unknown animals, children’s activities, and profiles of cryptozoologists. Tales of the Cryptids is a book I’ve highly recommended for kids since it was published.

Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist by Kelly Milner Halls, Rick Spears, and Roxyanne Young (Columbus, OH: Darby Creek Publishing, 2006).

The above drawing of the Gulf Coast cryptid, Altamaha-ha is by the artist and dinosaur exhibit designer Rick Spears, who is known for his illustrations in the award-winning book Tales of the Cryptids. Another version of Altamaha-ha is on the cover of the book.

I noted at the time, the 2006 Kansas City art exhibition “Cryptozoology Out of Time Place Scale” recommended other books of mine for kids, including The Field Guide of Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe (NY: Anomalist Books, 2006) and The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe (NY: Tarcher/Penguin, 2003).

It is good to know that librarians, such as ones throughout Maine, are stocking their shelves with great books like Kelly Milner Halls’ Tales of the Cryptids.