Mr. Pig LIVE... with Vampirina!

*Previously recorded due to the guest's sunlight restrictions.*

Good evening, friends! As you can see, I dressed up to make tonight's guest feel at home. She's the star of Anne Marie Pace's hit picture book series: VAMPIRINA BALLERINA, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. The newest book in the series, VAMPIRINA AT THE BEACH (Disney Hyperion 2017), is a tale of summer fun in the surf and sand, on an epic full moon night.

And ghouls and guys: this talented young lady is getting her very own animated series on DisneyJr. later this year!

Please give a warm, or should I say, cold Little Crooked Cottage welcome to:

VAMPIRINA!

<<applause>>

MP: Please make your self at home. Is Vampirina your full name?
V: Yes, I only have one name, Vampirina.

MP: What one word best describes you? 
V: Dancer.

MP: Now, a very serious question: Do you have a belly button? 
V: Yes, of course I do. Everybody has a belly button, even cats and bats. Well, I guess spiders don’t.

MP: What is the best thing about being you? 
V: Dancing!

MP: What is the worst thing about being you? 
V: I am maybe just a little bit bossy. I don’t mean to be, but when you learn stuff the hard way, it’s good to warn people so they don’t mess up, too.

MP: If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you bring? 
V: My friends! And hopefully music to dance to.

MP: What is your idea of the perfect day? 
V: Surfing in the evening, dancing after midnight, and then sleeping all day!

From Vampirina at the Beach (c) 2017 LeUyen Pham

MP: If you could have any superpower, what would it be? 
V: To jump even higher than I already can. Sometimes I have to turn into a bat to get up high and it would be so much easier if I could just JUMP!

MP: What are you reading right now? 
V: Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer and The Monsters’ Monster by Patrick McDonnell are my favorite books.  

MP: What is your favorite word?  
V: Pirouette!

MP: What is your least favorite word? 
V: Sunlight.

MP: What is your favorite sound? 
V: Bat wings flapping, especially if I can hear them out my window when I first wake up in the evening.

MP: What is your least favorite sound? 
V: The last note of a song I am dancing to.

MP: Share one thing that most of our readers don’t know about you. —
V: I am not only a dancing queen, I am a surfing queen!

MP: So many talents! Good for you! If you could dine with three characters from other books, who would they be? 
V: Zombelina, Angelina Ballerina, and Gibbous Moony. We have a lot in common.

MP: Indeed. If you have a pocket, what is in it right now? 
V: I don’t have pockets in my tutu or my cape! I do have a ballet bag. I carry my ballet shoes in it when I am not in the studio. Madame says, “No ballet shoes outside!”

MP: I may be treading into tricky territory here but... what did you eat for breakfast this morning? 
V: I usually have Spider Bites cereal. I like the way they crunch. But today I had pizza and blood orange juice.

MP: What is your most embarrassing moment? 
When my cat annoyed my ballet teacher. I was so embarrassed that I turned into a bat.

MP: What was it like working with Anne Marie Pace? 
V: She is almost as bossy as I am. She’s constantly asking me to change the things I want to say.  Luckily, she usually leaves me alone after a while.

Vampirina, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you tonight. Before you go, we have a special surprise: our caterer Mamabelly Lunches with Love, made you one of her famously scrumptious Literary Lunches! Call it a midnight snack, if you will. Follow me into the kitchen  while we roll the credits, and we'll serve you up a treat you can really sink your teeth into.

****************

Praise for Vampirina Ballerina

*”Pham (All the Things I Love About You) and Pace are entirely in sync in this sweetly goth ‘how to’ for vampirettes under the spell of something more powerful than anything the dark forces can muster: ballet.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Readers will applaud this elegantly designed, well-told story. Brava, indeed.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Pace’s funny, matter-of-fact advice (“always get a good day’s sleep”) works in harmony with Pham’s expressive watercolor pen-and-ink artwork, which depicts the adorable minivampire leaping and pliéing enthusiastically across the pages.”
—Booklist

“The sweet and spooky watercolor and pen-and-ink pictures are filled with motion and portray Vampirina’s ‘road to ballerinadom’ with humor and insight.”
—School Library Journal

“[T]he message that passion, dedication, and patience have beautiful results is inspirational for any reader.”
—Horn Book

Anne Marie Pace is a picture book author whose books include PIGLOO (Henry Holt, 2016, illustrated by Lorna Hussey); two original paperbacks for the Scholastic Book Club; and the three books of the VAMPIRINA BALLERINA series for Disney-Hyperion (illustrated by LeUyen Pham), which is in development as a television series (premiering on Disney Junior in 2017).  Upcoming books include GROUNDHUG DAY (Disney-Hyperion, illustrated by Christopher Denise, December, 2017) and BUSY-EYED DAY (Beach Lane Books, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon, April, 2018). She’s an active member of SCBWI and spends too much time on Facebook and Twitter.  Find her at http://www.annemariepace.com, https://www.facebook.com/VampirinaBallerina/ and @annemariepace.

*****************