The princess and
the puzzle!

I recently realized that I never posted the photos from the Sir Kaye launch party. Sorry about that! The parties were a lot of fun. We had several families come and bring their children. Some of them came wearing medieval-inspired costumes. We had a shield design contest, and there were puzzles and games, and of course I signed books too. Many thanks to All Things Kids and The Bookspot for hosting the parties.

In the picture below, on the left, you can see everyone hard at work on their shield designs at the table behind the shocked-looking young man. I’m afraid I can’t tell you why he was so shocked. I did look around to see what might have caused it, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe he suddenly remembered he had left the bathtub faucet running at home or something like that. The pictures on the right are close-up shots of a few shield designs as people were working on them.

Here are a few pictures of party guests who came in medieval costumes! One of the photos is me with two barefoot and bejewled princesses. The other photo is a guest with a wooden shield she made and designed and painted herself! I wish I had taken a picture of the back of the shield too, because she also included what I just now learned are called enarmes – straps that hold the shield to the forearm as well as one you can hold as a handgrip. And it was heavy too! I was really impressed with all the hard work she put into her shield. Thanks so much for sharing it with everybody!

Like any book launch party, the main reason to have one is to show the world (or at least the party attendees) the new book, so of course I was available to sign the book. Here’s a photo of me doing that. I like this photo better than any I’ve ever seen of me signing a book (and I have to tell you I don’t really like any photos of me, but I put them in the back of my books and on Facebook and stuff, because other people tell me I have to), so I decided to include this one here as a novelty item.

Finally, here are some of the shield contest entries from the guests at the party. It was lots of fun, and I’m really happy, because most of the kids and grownups who have read The Knighting of Sir Kaye have told me that they can’t wait for the next one! So I definitely have lots of work to do for next year.