Kids meet authors at library festival

A star marked the last Tuesday in January on Caroline Hatton’s home calendar.

It was the day Hatton, 49, of Culver City, made her yearly trip to the Huntington Beach Public Library for the annual “Authors Festival.” She has not missed the festival since the library first invited her in 2002.

The festival allowed library patrons to meet 23 authors, mostly children’s writers from throughout the Southland.

Hatton, a UCLA scientist who has written four children’s books, has a dual passion for science and inspiring kids to read, and the annual festival allows her multiple opportunities to carry on her literary mission.

Before fielding questions at the library about her writing, Hatton began her day as she has for the last six years, visiting a Huntington Beach elementary school to talk with students about her four books and tell tales about the life of a writer.

This year she visited College View Elementary School, where she spoke with various grade levels at morning assemblies. In the afternoon, she shared a private lunch with a special group of students who won a schoolwide writing contest.

Hatton was eager for the back-and-forth with the students. She didn’t just want to field questions — like the usual, “How much money do you make?” and “How do you become a writer?” She wanted to pick their little noggins as well, she said.

“Like many children’s authors, I have a day job, because unless your name is J.K. Rowling, you have to find some way to pay the bills,” she said. “The kids find out there are rich and poor authors.”

In her day job, Hatton tests athletes for use of performance enhancing drugs at the UCLA Olympic Laboratory. Hatton turned to fiction when she grew tired of writing “boring science articles” all day for adults.

“My whole life goes into every book I write,” Hatton said. “They all begin and end with an emotion — that kind of spurs me.”

Although the day job can be dull at times, the idea for one of her stories, “A Pet for Grandma,” came during a lunchtime conversation with colleagues while chatting about childhood pets.

Some of her co-workers reminisced how when they were kids they would catch and keep coconut beetles as pets, feeding them leaves and such, she said.

“Vero and Philippe,” her first book, published in 2001, tells a largely autobiographical story about two Vietnamese-French siblings who move from Normandy to Paris and have to learn to adjust to big city life.

“Of course, I changed the names so [my brother] wouldn’t sue me,” Hatton joked.

The scientist remembers every school she has visited in Huntington Beach, she said. Hatton even keeps a map of the city on a wall at home so she can keep track of each of the schools she visits.

The festival, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on Tuesday, tried a few new tactics this time. For instance, the event was moved upstairs this year, to the areas of the library that see more traffic.

Also, the Friends of the Children’s Library, which organizes the event, offered a writing and illustration contest for kids.

More than 700 youngsters submitted pieces following the theme “Locked in the Library.” Students from the Huntington Beach City, Ocean View and Fountain Valley school districts were invited to enter either a story, drawing or both.

At 3:30 p.m. in the library’s Talbert Room, awards were presented to the top writer and illustrator from kindergarten through sixth grades.

Claire Epting, 10, won the top prize for fourth-graders — a gift card to a bookstore. She was one of 72 children honored at the event.

In her version of being locked in the library, Claire imagined book characters jumping free from their pages and roaming the library with the narrator.

“Reading something gives me ideas for what I want to write or a style for something,” Claire said.

Claire’s victory was a nice case of symmetry, as Claire’s father, local author Chris Epting, gave out the awards. Epting was also one of the authors presenting at the library that afternoon.

“He gives me some ideas and tips and stuff,” Claire said. But that’s about all the help she got. “I wrote the first draft in one night and spent the next day revising,” she added.

Next year, Claire said she plans on entering both a story and a drawing.

Although festival organizers had no specific attendance figures, they noticed it was more popular this year.

The contests “brought a lot more people than might have come originally” to the festival, said Dawne Knobbe, a member of the Friends of the Children’s Library.