Book Notes

Kid Pan Alley takes over local bookstore

Paul Reisler, Terri Allard, Jeff Romano and children from eight Charlottesville area schools will be at Barnes and Noble on Saturday. Kid Pan Alley will be the beneficiary of the Barnes and Noble Book Fair that runs from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday.

During the book fair, students will be performing songs written during past Kid Pan Alley residencies from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Participating schools include Brownsville Elementary School, Greer Elementary School, Jackson-Via Elementary School, Peabody School, Red Hill Elementary School, St. Anne’s-Belfield Lower School, Nathanael Greene and Venable Elementary School.

All funds raised during the fair will go directly to sponsoring Kid Pan Alley residencies in area schools.

Kid Pan Alley has created more than 1,500 songs with some 25,000 elementary school children in communities across the United States. Some of their songs have been recorded on three professional CDs by world-renowned artists, including Delbert McClinton, Amy Grant, Kix Brooks, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Sissy Spacek, Corey Harris, John McCutcheon and Cracker.

Shoppers at Barnes and Noble stores need only present the voucher number — 479535 — at the register and a percentage of the sales for that purchase will go to Kid Pan Alley. If shoppers forget the voucher number, they need only tell the cashier that they would like their purchase to support Kid Pan Alley’s Book Fair.

Saturday schedule includes: 10 to 10:15 a.m. Venable Elementary School; 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. Red Hill Elementary School; 11:15 to 11:30 a.m. Peabody Elementary School; 11:50 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. Greer Elementary School; 12:20 to 12:35 p.m. Brownsville Elementary School; 1 to 1:20 p.m. Jackson-Via Elementary School; 1:45 to 2 p.m. St. Anne’s Belfield Lower School; 2:15 to 2:30 p.m. Jackson-Via Elementary School; 3 to 3:15 p.m. Brownsville Elementary School; 3:45 to 4 p.m. Nathanael Greene; 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Songwriting Workshop. Call Sandi Cararo at 984-6598 for more info.

Bechtel will read from ‘Camille’ story

Local author Stefan Bechtel will read from his book “Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille” at 2 p.m. today at the Nelson Memorial Library.

His book is about how Nelson County residents fared during this devastating 1969 hurricane.

Other events at branches of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library this week include:

l Brown Bag Book Club will meet noon Monday at Nelson Memorial to discuss “The Double Bind” by Christopher Bohjalian.

l There will be a meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Northside Library to decide what books to read for the next couple of months.

l As part of the Big Read there will be a free walking tour of the history of women at the University of Virginia, Meet at the Rotunda steps facing the lawn 1 p.m. Saturday.

Poetry Jam honors Vaughn Yountz

Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries will host a Poetry Jam at Bel Rio from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday.

Each year, CALM honors one individual at its Fifeville Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration for his or her work for and dedication to the Prospect area community. This year’s poetry jam is in honor of poet Vaughn Yountz.

In addition to Yountz, other local artists will share original and classic work before an open mic session. There is no cover charge, but donations are welcome. For more information, call 970-2016.

AlbemarleFamily gets four awards

Ivy Publications’ local parenting magazine AlbemarleFamily Living took home four awards from the Parenting Publications of America’s Annual Conven-tion in New Orleans.

Honors include a Gold Award for its Calendar of Events editorial, and a Bronze Award for its design, a Gold Award for special-section design for its August “Back to School” issue and a Gold Award recognizing the magazine’s complete redesign, which was undertaken to mark its 10th anniversary in 2008.

Learn more at AlbemarleFamily.com.

VQR is a finalist for two national awards

The Virginia Quarterly Review is a finalist in the 44th annual National Magazine Awards, which is the magazine industry’s equivalent to Pulitzer Prizes.

VQR is a finalist for general excellence for publications with circulation of less than 100,000 and for fiction.

It’s the fifth consecutive year that VQR has been named a finalist in the general excellence category. In the past five years, the literary and current affairs magazine has picked up 15 nominations and has won three awards.

The fiction nod came for two short stories from the summer 2008 issue — Sana Krasikov’s “Asal” and Kanishk Tharoor’s “Tale of the Teahouse.”

From staff and wire reports