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Tracy van Straaten
VP, Trade Publicity, Scholastic
tvanstraaten@scholastic.com
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Registration Now Open for Free January 15, 2014 Webcast Designed to Teach Kids About Creative Writing

NEW YORK, NY—November 21, 2013—Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced a free webcast event pairing for the first time bestselling author-artist Jeff Kinney, creator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and Dav Pilkey, creator of the Captain Underpants series. The “Story Smashup” event will be available on January 15, 2014 at 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT, and is designed to teach kids how to write a story—exploring character, setting, plot, action, and more. The webcast will be globally accessible for free starting January 15, 2014, and afterward for replay, at www.scholastic.com/kpwebcast.   

During the webcast, children and educators around the world will watch superstar artist-authors Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey work together to create an original story, with art and pictures, live on stage based on suggestions from an audience of kids. Viewers will also watch Kinney and Pilkey’s hilarious attempts to draw each other’s characters and to see if they can draw their own characters, Greg Heffley and Captain Underpants, blindfolded!

In addition, Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey’s never-before-seen hilarious six panel story starter will be available for download starting January 15, 2014. Teachers can go to www.scholastic.com/kpwebcast to pre-register for the webcast and to download a contest entry form and ask their students to create their own brilliant, one-of-a-kind, three-panel ending to Kinney and Pilkey’s original story! One Grand Prize Winner will have his or her entry framed alongside Kinney and Pilkey’s first six panels, autographed by each author. Ten Runners-Up will receive their very own illustrated storytelling extravaganza book collection.

“Working with Dav Pilkey was a dream come true,” said Jeff Kinney. “Dav is incredibly funny and he’s been a hero of mine for a long time. It was great bringing the Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants worlds together!”

“It was great fun creating an original story with Jeff Kinney,” said Dav Pilkey. “Just like the kids in the audience, I was in complete awe of Jeff's talent and his ability to connect so naturally with people.  I really think students are going to enjoy dreaming up their own endings to our bizarre and spontaneous adventure.”

“Scholastic is proud to be able to bring together two of the world’s most innovative and popular talents in children’s publishing to show kids first-hand how to approach writing and illustrating their own stories in this exclusive webcast,” said Ellie Berger, President, Scholastic Trade. “You’ve never seen anything quite like this amazing duo’s spontaneous brilliance as they bring their creative process from the studio to the stage.”

Jeff Kinney is the bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which has over 115 million copies in print in 44 languages around the world. Diary of a Wimpy Kid won Favorite Book at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards three times, and Jeff was twice voted Author of the Year at the Children's Choice Book Awards.  Jeff was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World and is the creator of Poptropica.com, a virtual world for kids. The latest book in the series is Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 8, Hard Luck, which has the biggest first printing of any book in 2013, and is currently the #1 bestselling book in the USA. There are more Wimpy Kid books to come. Jeff Kinney lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons.

Dav Pilkey created his first stories as comic books while he was in elementary school, including a character named Captain Underpants. The Adventures of Captain Underpants was published in 1997, and the Captain Underpants series has more than 70 million books in print worldwide. Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets will be published in an all-new color edition on January 7, 2014. In addition to the bestselling Captain Underpants series, Dav Pilkey is the creator of numerous popular, award-winning books for children, such as Dog Breath, winner of the California Young Reader Medal; The Paperboy, a Caldecott Honor Book; The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list; The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, a #1 New York Times bestseller, and the Ricky Ricotta and Dumb Bunnies series. In 2011, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. acquired film rights to Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants book series. A feature film is currently in development. 

Dav Pilkey (left) and Jeff Kinney (right) at Scholastic webcast. Photo courtesy Scholastic.

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