Book Expo America: Essentials for Father's Day

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The real Diaper David (Photo by Joe O'Connell)

I suppose it says a lot about the changes in my life that while at Book Expo America trying to talk the world into buying my novel Evacuation Plan the celebrity author I was most excited to meet was David Shannon. If you haven't heard of Shannon, aka Diaper David, then you don't have a young child. In the diaper through kindergarten set, Shannon's series of crudely drawn (on purpose) Diaper David books has the cult-like status of Harry Potter.
Shannon, already a respected children's illustrator, got the idea for the books when his mother sent him a self-portrait he drew at the age of 5. Thus was born Diaper David, who makes messes, resists naps and is generally lovable. My son Nicholas latched on to the first of the books and we now own the full set, plus another book about Shannon's real-life dog Fergus, who is also Diaper David's pooch.

At Book Expo, Shannon signed copies of his latest book, Too Many Toys, which is about a little boy named Spencer who looks a lot like Shanon's daughter Emma's best friend, but acts even more like her. The basic premise here seems designed to let Shannon draw lots of cool toys. He pointed out some of the secrets like one that was meant to be Harry Potter as an old man. A small group mainly of moms in the know hung on his every word.
Another winning children's book (as rated by my son) handed out at Book Expo was A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee, which is essentially about two boys who learn about nature while playing gobs of video games and eating even more banana waffles.
But the title of this post has to do with Father's Day, and the best gift you could give a dad is Armin A. Brott's Father for Life. Brott is the author of The Expectant Father, one of those how-to tomes passed on to me prior to Nicholas' birth that helped me over some of those early, sleepy bumps. This time Brott – who told me he also writes business books from home so he can hang out with his kids – has written a book with a much broader message. It tells dads what to expect all the way to old age. So why buy a tie when you can buy a book and help a dad to figure it all out?