Last Sunday I trekked up to Costa Mesa for the Orange County Children’s Book Festival, the largest free children’s book festival in the country, drawing something like 30 thousand attendees, many of whom no doubt come for the petting zoo, but also to see authors and illustrators and storytellers along with the chickens and pigs and shoe-eating goats.

I had a spot on the Teen/YA stage and got to tell a friendly crowd about my books, and then I read a bit of a work in progress. It was a fast and fun fifteen minutes, at the end of which I gave away ARCs of the Diverse Energies anthology, a couple of leftover ARCs of The Boy at the End of the World,  and a couple Scholastic edition copies of The Boy at the End of the World paperback.

After my stage bit, I hung out and chatted with readers and signed books at the Mysterious Galaxy booth. Also got to chat with EJ Altbacker, author of the  Shark Wars series (warring sharks, how can you beat that?).  I fan-boyed at him a bit, because he writes for the Green Lantern animated series, so he’s kinda got one of my dream jobs.

Here’re a few pics of the stage and from the stage, ganked from the festival’s Facebook page: