>> Good morning everyone. >> Good morning. >> Welcome to the Library of Congress. Who's been here before? >> Me. >> Sasha Dowdy: Hi, welcome back. And, who is here for the very first time? Welcome. I'm so glad you guys are here. We have such a special program for you today. We have two special guests and we're going to start with somebody who works with me. So, my name is Sasha Dowdy and I work here in the Young Readers Center. We're the space for kids under 16. Everybody under 16 here? So, this is a space just for you in this library, the biggest library in the world, so you own this space. This is a pretty good place to be. And, the person who works with me, my colleague, his name is Ahmed Johnson. He works in Library Services in a division called History and Genealogy. Everybody know what history is? >> Yes. >> Sasha Dowdy: Everybody know what genealogy is? >> No. >> Sasha Dowdy: Right, that's exactly how I wanted to hear that. So, Ahmed is going to tell you all about what genealogy means, what he does with it and what it has anything to do with our program today. So, how about we welcome Ahmed Johnson. [ Applause ] >> Ahmed Johnson: Thank you so much Sasha. Once again, my name is Ahmed, Ahmed Johnson and I work here at the Library of Congress. And, my specialty is African American Genealogy. And, what does that mean? Can anybody tell me what genealogy means? No. Nobody. Genealogy is the study of your family history. Okay. So, is anyone interested in maybe what their grandparents were doing at your age, maybe their great-grandparents and so on? Well, here at the Library of Congress, we have books where people have documented their family histories, okay. And, you can come here, and you can search our catalogs and see if we have anything relevant to your family. Can everybody see this chart here? What's this? [ Inaudible ] >> Ahmed Johnson: It's a family tree. And, the most interesting thing about this family tree is, it's not my family but it's the Blackwell family and it goes back to 1789. >> Wow. >> Ahmed Johnson: How many years ago was that? Can anybody tell me? About 300 years, yes exactly. Good answer. So, here's an example of what happens is, people donate their family histories to the Library of Congress, okay. And, I also have a picture. So, what I want everyone to do over the Thanksgiving break is ask questions. Ask your parents about their parents and their parents and so forth and then I want you to document it. I have handouts over here where you could document this information, okay? Because one day, what do I want? I want your family history to be here at the Library of Congress. Everybody good with that? >> Yeah. >> Ahmed Johnson: Can I get a hand clap for that? All right, so I have another goodie here. This is a picture of my family. This is my grandmother at the age of 2, she's now 98 years old. So, I'm showing you this to encourage you to do the same thing. Look for pictures. Look in a photo album, find pictures, document the information that you find from the picture. Now, I'm going to pass this around, but this is very valuable to me. So, what do I want? I want it back, because this is a treasure in my family, so I'm going to start right here and take a look at that picture, okay. And, at the end of the program, if you have any questions, I'm here to answer them. Thank you so much guys. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Sasha Dowdy: Thank you very much and you guys can learn so much more about genealogy. You can work with your teachers and your family to look what you can find at the Library of Congress. You can come in person or you can go online, so that's pretty cool. So, next up we have our author guest today, Megan McDonald, she is an author of so many books. She's written some picture books. She's written some chapter books. Who here has heard of "Stink"? Who's heard of "Judy Moody"? This is the author of Judy Moody and Stink, she also writes all kinds of stories. She gathers stories and she shares them and there was even a movie made about one of her books, yeah, the Judy, yeah exactly you guys are fans here, so how about we hear from Megan McDonald about the newest book she wrote in the Judy Moody series and what it has to do with genealogy. So how about we welcome here, Megan McDonald. [ Applause ] >> Megan McDonald: Thank you. Thank you everybody. I'm so happy to be here and I want to thank the Library of Congress and First Book and Candlewick Press for all working together to bring me here to talk with you today. Most of my Judy Moody and Stink stories come from my family, from a story that really happened in my family. So, you're going to hear a lot about my big sisters. I have four older sisters; don't you feel sorry for me? Four. But actually, growing up with sisters, a lot of funny things happened and I'd like to make them happen to my characters in the books, okay. I'm going to tell you a lot about my new book, "Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party", but first I wanted to start out showing you, I thought it would be fun, you get to see the book when it's all finished and it's in the library, hopefully all of the mistakes are fixed by then and all the pictures are done, but I thought it would be fun to show you, since I'm a writer, well what does it really look like when I first start to write a Judy Moody book? Okay, so here's what it actually looks like. Here's how a book starts for me, ta-da. Do you know what this is? >> A napkin! >> Megan McDonald: It's a napkin. Most people use it to wipe their mouth after lunch right? But I'm a writer, so I write on anything. If I get a great idea for Judy Moody, I might not be at home, I might not have my computer or I might not have my notebook with me, so I just scribble it on whatever I have, something like a napkin. On this napkin if you could see in the middle here, it says, instead of Judy Moody, it says, Judy Muddy and that idea, the funny sound of mixing up her name, that idea became the whole book, "Judy Moody Gets Famous". In that book, Judy decides she's going to try some funny ways to get, to try to become famous and get her picture in the newspaper, but the thing that she thinks up is, she decides her, she finds out there's a famous pet contest at the pet store and in the pet contest, if you, if your pet has a really good pet trick, you can enter your pet in the contest, if your pet wins for the best trick then you get your picture taken with your pet in the newspaper. So, Judy has a cat named Mouse and Judy is sure that Mouse is going to be her ticket to fame, to getting her picture in the paper, because Mouse, I'll put him on, her up on the screen. Oh, here's the napkin a little bit bigger so you can see where it says Judy Muddy there and here's the book I'm referring to in Judy Moody Gets Famous. So, Mouse has a special talent, she knows how to make toast. Her cat can push down the little button on the toaster and up pops the toast. And, Judy's like, what can be a better pet trick than a cat who makes toast, right. So, she's sure they're going to win the contest and she's going to get her picture in the paper, but when she gets to the pet store, there's a chicken who plays the piano. So, Judy gets, Judy and Mouse get beat out by the piano playing chicken, so instead of winning, she gets second place, but she thinks, hey, at least I'll still get my picture in the paper, right. So, when the photographer goes to snap the picture, just as she scoops up Mouse and has her cat in her arms, and just as the photographer goes to take the picture, Mouse leaps out of her arm and scratches her and Judy goes, aah!, like this, and instead of her face, the only thing that gets in the picture in the paper is her elbow. So, instead of getting famous, she just has one famous elbow, poor Judy. But now she thinks, okay, even though it's just my elbow, it'll say my name under the caption in the picture, right and everybody'll that's me Judy Moody. And, she goes to read her name in the paper and instead of Judy Moody, the newspaper made a mistake and they spelled her name wrong. They called her Judy Muddy. So, that was the idea when I first thought of that something could go wrong when she tries to get her picture in the paper. I scribbled it down on the napkin and that's how it all started. Then after I was thinking about what could go wrong, I remembered something really funny that happened to me when I first became a published writer, I got my picture in the paper and I thought it would be so exciting to see my picture in the paper. So, the day it came out, I went to the store and I made a mistake. I should've just looked inside the newspaper first to make sure that I would want anybody to see the picture of me, but I didn't look inside. I bought a bunch of papers and I brought them home and when I got home and I opened the newspaper, I couldn't believe my eyes. The newspaper made a mistake and instead of the picture of me for the author Megan McDonald, they printed a pic, a different picture with my name in the paper, so I brought it to show you today. Here's the picture of the children's book writer, Megan McDonald. Okay, ready? [ Laughter ] >> Megan McDonald: What?! It's a guy! So, this is the picture that was me. If you're not sure who this guy is, because you might think it's Elvis or something, but if you're not sure who he is, it says Megan McDonald pictured, so everybody who read the newspaper that day thought this guy was Megan McDonald, the children's book author. So, things can, things that go, even things that go wrong that happen to you or funny things like that can become a story in a book. But my favorite way to get ideas is, I like to take funny things that really happen like family stories from when I was your age and put them in my book, so I'm going to tell you a family story. I'll tell you the true story of what really happened, then I'll show you how I change it for by book. Okay, but in real life, this is a story of a really funny joke that I got to play on my sisters. And, when you're the youngest of five, your older sis, my older sisters were always pranking me and playing jokes on me. But one time, this is the one time I remember when I got my sisters so good, so I wanted to put that family story in my book, okay. But in real life, my whole family, we grew up in Pennsylvania, but we got to come to Washington D.C., and we were just here to visit our friends, but when we got here my mom and dad were like, hey it's the Capitol and it's where the White House is, we could go take a tour. So, my mom and my dad and all four sisters, all got to take a tour. They went to the White House. Back then it was a long time ago, so a man named John F. Kennedy was the president. And, my mom, dad, and all four sisters got to go take a tour of the White House when he was president. I was too little. They said, I would get bored and I would cry, so I had to stay home with our friends. But I was so disappointed because when you're the youngest, you want to do everything your big sisters get to do, right. So, I wanted to go, even though I didn't know what the White House was, I was too little, but I knew I wanted to go. Well, I was so disappointed, I stayed home with the friends and the friends were trying to cheer me up. And, to cheer me up, they got out this box, they had with all these cool toys from when their kids were little. They said I could play with whatever I wanted in the box and if I found one thing I really like, they said I could use it, I could keep it and take it home with me. So, I went all through the box, and as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly which thing I was going to keep, because I knew I could use it to play a really funny joke on my sisters while they were at the White House and I wasn't. And, the thing was, if anybody, has anybody here read the first Judy Moody book? If you've read the first book, you might've guessed, but the thing was. >> A hand. >> Megan McDonald: Yes, a fake hand and it looked so real even though it's just plastic. It looked really real. So, I took the fake hand and I'm like, this is really going to freak out my sisters, right. I went all over our friend's house and I was like, what would be the absolute best place to put the fake hand to really freak out my sisters? So, after I went through all the rooms, I got to the bathroom. You knew it? You guessed. See, I think like a kid, right? And, I was like, hey, I know, how about the toilet? So, I made sure nobody was watching and I went into the bathroom and I lifted up the toilet seat and I made the fake hand stick out of the toilet. It looks like it's reaching out to get you. And, then, so I setup the joke, then I waited for my sisters to come home from the White House. It took them forever. They were there all day and when they got back, they were so excited about everything they had seen at the White House. They were talking, talking, talking, I was hardly listening, because all I could think about is when is somebody going to go in that bathroom and find what? The hand. And, finally my sister Michelle went into the bathroom and she goes in there and shuts the door and like two seconds later, we hear this like ahh, this really big scream and she came running out of the bathroom, no lie. She goes mom, dad, there's somebody in the toilet. And, we were cracking up so bad, my sisters are all grown ups now, it doesn't matter, when we all get together, we still like to tell the story of the fake hand in the toilet. So, I decided, hey, that's a funny story from my family that I'm going to have happen to my characters, but of course, when you're writing you can use your imagination, it doesn't have to be exactly like real life. So, you can make up whatever you want to happen right? So, I decided in my book that Stink would be the one who gets to go to the White House, he's the youngest like me. So, he would get to go and Judy, his older sister would have to stay home. So, Stink decides he's going on this field trip to the White House, he decides he's going to dress up like a human flag. So, he gets an old red and white striped tablecloth and he dresses up like a human flag. He puts all the stars for the 48 states on his hat. What did he do wrong? You guys are in 5th grade, so you know. There's 50 states, right? So, he forgot there, he forgot about two really important states, Hawaii and Alaska, so Judy helps him with the right number, put the right number of stars on his hat. He goes off on his field trip to the White House, but Judy has to go to school that day. It's a regular school day and when she gets to school that day, it just happens to be brush your teeth week at school. During brush your teeth week, two dentists come to school, Mr. Tooth and Mrs. Floss. They dress up like a tooth and a box of dental floss. And, they're there to tell you all about brushing your teeth, but Judy is like, I already know how to brush my teeth and Stink gets to go on this great adventure to the White House. Well, to make matters even worse, out of all the kids in the kids in the school they pick Judy Moody. She has to come up in front of everybody and she has to be the cavity. So, Stink gets to be a human flag, Judy has to be an old tooth with a hole in it. And, now she's in a bad, mad mood, and that's when she gets the idea, hey, I know, I'm going to play a funny joke on Stink while he's at the White House and I'm not, sound familiar right. So, Judy played, plays the same joke I did, she borrows the fake hand from her friend Rocky, and she goes all over the house and she puts the fake hand in the toilet just like I did. So, when Stink gets home from the White House, he finally goes into the bathroom and when he sees the fake hand it freaks him out and he comes screaming out of the bathroom and all of the stars for the 50 states go flying off of his hat. So, that's just one example of how I take a family story from my own family and make it happen in my book. If you guys like to write and illustrate your own books, you can do the same thing and of course, with genealogy you can even go back further and tell a story about a grandma or grandpa or somebody that goes back even further in your family. Kids, often when I'm speaking, kids will ask me, what other, did you write any other books besides Judy Moody? So, I brought a few to show you, I'm going to skip ahead here. My very first book that I ever got published is this book called, "Is This a House for Hermit Crab?" and it was a book I told before I became a writer, I was a librarian, a children's librarian and I told stories at the library all the time and this was based on a story I told at the library, just a story about a hermit crab walking on the beach, looking for just the right home. So, before there was Judy Moody, I wrote a lot of picture books, one about a grumpy princess called, "The Hinky Pink" a really exciting true-life story called, "Saving the Liberty Bell". This is historical fiction, and this is a true story of a time during the American Revolution. We don't usually get this, hear this story in our history books, I'm not sure why because it's so exciting. During the revolution, the British were coming into Philadelphia, they wanted to capture the Liberty Bell and melt down all the metal from the bell and would've even had the Liberty Bell if they did that. So, a group of farmers from Allentown, Pennsylvania, decided, hey, we, the Liberty Bell is our somebody of freedom, we don't want it melted down, so they got all their farmers wagons and at midnight one night, under the cover of darkness, they snuck into Philadelphia and they cap, they took down the Liberty Bell and they hid it on the farmer's wagon. They covered it with straw and a lady's old hoop skirt, and they took it all the way back through the night to, back to Allentown where they were from and they hid it in the basement of a church there. And, you can still, I got to go when I was researching this book. You can still go to this basement of the church and see where the bell was hidden and they have a replica of the bell there. And, I found out all the farmers were grownups, but one farmer took his 11-year-old boy with him, so I told the story from the 11-year-old boy that went on that trip. A friend of mine who is an illustrator, drew this wonderful picture of a dog who likes to eat, what? >> Shoes. >> Megan McDonald: So, that became a book I did called, "Shoe Dog" and if you like Judy Moody books or if you like funny stories, some of the funny stories of growing up with all my sisters, I use a lot of those funny stories in my books about The Sister's Club. This is about three sisters instead of five and each one is, there story is told in a different voice from each sister's point of view. And, there are some great sister stories, when you have a lot of sisters, there's always a lot of hair disasters and when my sisters were teenagers, the style was to have, we all have curly hair, but the style was to have straight hair. So, my sisters to get straight hair, use to iron their hair on the ironing board. Yeah, they would take, they had long hair and they literally like, would lean over, lay it out on the ironing board, you get the iron really hot and then you iron the hair to make it straight. Well, remember what I said about hair disasters? One time my sister was getting her hair ironed and another sister was ironing it and the phone rang and in those days, we didn't have cell phones. You had to go in the other room and answer the phone on the wall, right. So, she went to answer the phone, but she put the iron. >> She left the iron on her hair. >> Megan McDonald: You guys are storytellers, you already know. She left the iron on her hair and when she came back from the phone, all this smoke was coming up from her hair and when she lifted up the iron, there was like a big, you know, how an iron is like a triangle? There was a big shape of the iron that got burned out of the back of her hair, so I retell that story in one of my Sister's Club books. Here's a picture of the four sisters I've been telling you about when they were young and my mom. This is, I wanted to show you a picture of the sisters from when they were young, from when we were growing up. So, I told my sisters that I put this photo in the show for you and they're like, well you have to show everybody a picture of you, because you're not in this picture. So, I made a mistake, I told my sisters they could choose which picture I would show you today, so here's the picture of me that they chose to show you. They said, we're picking this picture because it's the best way to show how I went from a kid to grow up into somebody who writes about a girl with a lot of moods. Okay, so here's me. [ Laughter ] >> Megan McDonald: This is me when I was probably like 2 years old or something and my mom and dad just wanted to take a nice, they dressed me up and they wanted to take a nice picture of me, and I was not having it. I would not get my picture taken. I, Megan McDonald was in a mood. So, I went over to the neighbors and I laid down with my face on the driveway and I was kicking my feet, and my sister, the one I played the joke on, she had just gotten a little brownie camera for her birthday, she came out and took a whole roll of pictures throwing a tantrum on the neighbors driveway, so that's, we can that one Megan Moody. Here's me today. Kids, readers often ask me where I write, so there's a little room upstairs in my house where I have a lot of, like Judy Moody, I like to collect stuff, so you can see some of the th-- Judy Moody has some funny collections like, she collects pizza tables, you know, those little things in the pizza box that hold the lid up from getting in the cheese and this is the giant jawbreaker. I think I might own the world's biggest jawbreaker maybe. But that jawbreaker inspired "Stink and the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker". Judy collects Band-Aids, she admires Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first woman to become a doctor in our country. If you could believe it, there was a time where only boys could go to medical school. And, Elizabeth Blackwell thought that wasn't fair, so she applied and became the first doctor, so Judy collects Band-Aids, because she admires Elizabeth Blackwell and wants to be a doctor when she grows up. And, then if you look right here, she, Judy also collects A, B, oh yeah, you see the hand, where's the hand? Oh yeah, it's right up here. I have a little mini version. She collects ABC gum. Do you guys know what that is? ABC stands for already been chewed. So, when we made the movie of Judy Moody, one of the things I got to do to help with the movie is, I got to help the artist tell them what might be in Judy Moody's room and pick out some of the stuff that got to be in her room. And, I said, well she has to have her ABC gum collection, so the artist on the movie made a whole collection out of clay to look like it's gum that's already been chewed and they put it on that little board and they, they even made a name for every flavor of gum and they hung it on the door. So, when you watch the movie, if you look in her room, you will be able to see the ABC gum collection. I also wanted to show you a rough draft. This is what it really looks like when I'm working on Judy moody. This is from the very first book and my editor is here today, so I can't say anything bad. But she's the one with the red pen, I'm the one with the typewriting and she has a lot of opinions and suggestions, oddly enough. Of course, when I first send her the book, I think it's perfect and it doesn't need to change at all, right, but she never things so, she always finds suggestions and things, and it's actually great because it makes it a much better book. She cuts out all the boring parts, so you guys don't have to read those parts which makes the book funnier. She helps me get a really good ending. I have trouble sometimes coming up with titles, so she helps me sometimes even think up a really good title. Even spelling the words the words the right way, it helps to have someone to help you with that. So, I just wanted to show you what it looks like because when I write a book, I usually write it, maybe three or four different times, so I go through a lot of sloppy copies and rough drafts. The illustrator for Judy Moody is Peter, his name is Peter Reynolds and Peter also has to go through rough drafts. Imagine, like when you first got the story, he had to figure out what's Judy Moody going to look like. So, the first time I got to see a sketch of her, this is what she looks like, but if she's supposed to be in 3rd grade, what do you think not, might not be right about this drawing? Yeah, she's too short and too young right. She looks like she might only be 4 or 5 years old. So, I went to a classroom near my house and took pictures of 3rd graders and we sent them to Peter, and he made her taller, but this time, this is supposed to be the cover of the very first book. And, it's a funny book, so you want the cover to make you laugh, right. So, he put this, a different mood on the cover that I thought would not really make us laugh. Doesn't she look too sad to be on a funny book? She looks like she just had the most bummer summer ever. So, now my editor went back to Peter and said, can we try maybe a different mood where she doesn't look quite so sad. So, now we're getting, she's a little taller and we're getting closer, but now in the next one I got to see, she looks kind of scary. Doesn't she look scary like she's making a me collage, all about herself and her family and her interests, but she looks like she's going to hurt somebody with those scissors. >> I have an idea, you should've, you should've, you should've drew her laying on the floor. >> Megan McDonald: Yeah. Exactly. That would've been good. So, finally Peter he had to start all over again. Finally, he drew Judy to look like this and I love this sketch because it looks like she's just about to play a funny joke on Stink, right? And, she has her famous tiger striped pajamas on and she's the only kid with the shirt with no words, so she's going to write, I ate a shark on her shirt. This became the first cover based on that sketch. You guys read that one? And, today, Judy has a brand-new look and a brand-new cover with her tiger stripes and looks more like this in full color, yeah. Okay, now I want to skip a little bit and I want to tell you about my brand-new book, "Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party". This book, even though Judy Moody is made up in my imagination, I decided I was going to write a book where Judy was going to do a family tree like, not this complicated, but she was going to make her own family tree and find out if she went back to her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, 13 times great grandparents, find out about who she might be related to. So, in order to do that, I had to look up, I had to do a lot of genealogy and family history of the name Moody because that's Judy's last name and her family heritage, right? So, when I looked up the name Moody, I found out, Judy would've been related to some really interesting people, like, there was a James Moody who was on the Titanic. And, he was like, a junior officer, but he helped three, for three different life boats, he helped people from the Titanic get onto these life boats and save their lives before he himself died, so she might've been related. She thinks she's related to James Moody from the Titanic. When I first looked up the name, sometimes if you look up your last name, it wasn't always spelled the same way. So, when I looked up Moody, if you go way back to the time of Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I in England, her name would've been Modig, M - O - D - I - G, Judy Modig and Modig means brave or bravery. So, when I was looking that up, I found the spelling also, the spelling of Moody, it looks like Mudeye, so Judy starts to think she was also related to a pirate, Mudeye Moody and then when she goes back far enough to the time of Shakespeare, she starts to think that she was related to Queen Elizabeth herself. And so, if she's related to the queen, that means the queen, the queen now, is, oh let me skip ahead and I can show you, the queen now of England is about 90 years old. She's been the queen for a long time. And, I'll skip ahead and show you, wait let's see. Let's see. There we go, oh wait. So, here's the queen today. So, Judy decides, if she has royal blood, she would be related to the Queen of England. >> She looks like her a little. >> Megan McDonald: She does. And, the queen is 90 but she's very fancy. She always wears these colorful suits with a big hat. Sometimes the hat has all these flowers on it, or she wears all of her jewels. The question the queen gets asked the most often by kids is how heavy is that crown because it has so many jewels on it, it's hard to walk with it because it's so heavy. So, Judy decides if she has royal blood, she just might be related to the Queen of England, she's pretty sure she is. So, she thinks when I give my report at school, I'm going to have the most exciting one because I'm going to tell everybody I'm related to the queen. But when she gets up to give her project, she finds somebody who gives their project in her class before her, she finds out that, that person did a bunch of research too and that Judy may not be related to the queen herself, she may be related to somebody else who worked at the palace like, in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. There was an actual job called the royal bug destroyer and that person's job was to squish or squash the bugs that got into the palace, right. So, Judy finds out she might be related to the royal rat catcher instead of the queen, so you have to read the book to find out what happens. But when I was doing the research, I decided you know, the Queen of England, they love their tea in England, right, so she loves to drink tea. Every day at 4:00 they have high tea in England and high tea just means you drink tea and you have fancy little cookies or something with it. And so, Judy decides, hey, I'm going to have a tea party for my friends and its going to be at 4:00 sharp and she's going to hold it Toad Pee club tent. So, she decorates the tent all fancy and she sets up the tea party and she tells her friends to be there at 4:00 sharp, but she writes it in a secret code and nobody comes. At 4:00, nobody's there and she thinks, did they not crack the code, but she's sure they would've cracked the code. So, then 4:01 comes, then 4:03, then 4:05, then 4:15 and they're not there and she finally learns, her friends thought a tea parts sounded kind of boring, so they weren't planning on coming. So, Judy has to think up how can I make a tea party really exciting? And the reason it's a right royal tea party, in the back is a dictionary of some funny words, the way you say things if you live in England. So, if you look up, right royal in the back, it says, right royal means extremely exciting and fun. So, Judy decides she's going to make up some fun games and one of the games I made up, I noticed when I was researching about the queen, every picture I saw, she always had a purse. She always carried her fancy purse. Well, I read that the Queen of England, if you could believe it, she's so fancy, she owns over 300 different purses. And, I started to think what is in your purse if you're the Queen of England, right? What would you carry in your purse and she never leaves it at home, at the Palace. So, I had to do a lot of research, I probably should've come to the Library of Congress to look it up. I had to do a lot of research to find out, what is in the queen's purse. But I learned some really interesting things that she has in her purse, besides tea, I should tell you the queen also loves dogs and horses. She usually has corgis, right now she has four different palace dogs, two are corgis and two are adopted dogs. So, she always has dogs, so I'm going to pull some things out and some of them would be in the queen's purse and some wouldn't, but I'm going to see if you can guess if you think this would be in the queen's purse, okay. So, do you think the Queen of England first of all would have in her purse a tea bag? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: That's what I thought, because they're crazy for tea over there, right? So, I thought she'd have a tea bag, but hello, she's the queen, she doesn't make her own tea. The royal tea maker makes the tea, right, so she doesn't even have to carry her own tea bag. Do, you think she would have a fancy pen? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: She does. She always carries a fancy pen in her purse. Do you think she would have a crossword puzzle in her purse? >> No. >> Megan McDonald: I thought no way, but she does. She always carries a crossword in case she gets bored or in case she needs to use the fancy pen, right? So, in that way the queen and I are alike because I always have a crossword. Do you think the queen would have a candy necklace? >> No. >> Megan McDonald: No way. Do you think Judy Moody would have a candy? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: So, Judy Moody has one. The queen would probably have real pearls or diamonds or something. We can't eat because I have to show it to some other kids. Do you think the queen would have some mints in her purse? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: She always has mints because she's the queen, she can't have bad breath, right? Okay, do you think she would have a fancy hanky? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: You guys are good she does. She always has a fancy hanky in case she gets the sniffles. And, the Queen of England can't have boogers, right? Okay, do you think she would have a fancy lipstick? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: Yes. In case she has to write SOS like Nancy Drew? >> No. >> Megan McDonald: She always has a fancy lipstick. Do you think she would have a dog treat? I know. Isn't that crazy? She always carries dog treats in her purse. That's how much the queen loves dogs. She doesn't leave the palace without a dog treat. Do you think she would have a rubber ducky? >> No. >> Megan McDonald: She doesn't actually carry this in her purse, but I learned when I was researching, the queen actually has a rubber ducky in the royal bathroom and her rubber ducky wears a crown, isn't that crazy? Okay, now this one's really crazy, do you think the Queen of England would have in her purse, a spark plug from a car? >> No. >> Megan McDonald: No, she probably doesn't carry her own but I learned, the queen even though she's 90 years old, she knows how to change a spark plug in the car, so if the royal palace car breaks down, the queen can get out and change the spark plug. Pretty cool huh? And, last of all, do you think the queen would have in her purse, a lucky charm? >> Yes. >> Megan McDonald: You guys are good. How'd you know that. I thought no way would the queen carry a lucky charm, but she does. She always has a lucky charm. However, I couldn't find out what her lucky charm is, so if you ever get to meet the Queen of England, please ask her for me what is your lucky charm so we can find out. Okay, do you, does anybody have a question you wanted to ask today before it's time to go? Yeah? >> Will you make anymore, will you make anymore, books, different books other than Judy Moody? >> Megan McDonald: Yes, so the question is will I make anymore different books other than Judy Moody. I've actually been working on a new book for about 2 years so far that's not about Judy Moody. And, this book is so different because it's a fantasy, so it's totally just made up in my imagination, but maybe someday I'll finish it. >> Will you ever like have a clothing line with like Judy Moody, like across like a hoodie or a shirt? >> Megan McDonald: Ooh, I'm so glad you said that since my publisher's here today. [ Laughter ] >> We would love to do that someday, but you can also go to the Judy Moody website and you can print out the "I Ate a Shark" thing if you want to make your own shirt, so that's pretty cool too. >> What I would like to know is, how old are you? >> Megan McDonald: How old am I? Oh boy, okay, I am, let's see, I usually try to make it a math problem so you can figure out. Okay, so my first book came out when I was 30 years old and I've been writing books for 30, almost 30 years. [ Multiple Speakers ] >> Megan McDonald: That's right, I'm 59, 58, 59 or 60, one of those. I'm almost, I'm 59, I'm almost 60. Next year I'll be 60 years old. [ Inaudible ] >> Megan McDonald: Oh, thanks you guys, keep saying that. Did everybody get that? Go ahead. >> How long have you been doing Judy Moody books? >> Megan McDonald: Okay, how long have I been writing Judy Moody books? Well, long enough that kids who are in college now, read Judy Moody when they were young, so the first Judy Moody book came out in the 2000, so for about 18 years. So, actually a little more because I had to write the Judy Moody book for a couple of years before it came out, so probably about 20 years with Judy and Stink, so they're like my family, right? Oh, sorry, no go ahead, sorry. >> Can we publish books online, the Judy Moody books? >> Megan McDonald: Can you publish them? >> Like buy them. >> Megan McDonald: Oh yeah, you can buy them online, yeah. You can publish your own books. >> Have you met any of the actors in the movie? >> Megan McDonald: Oh yeah, so we were so lucky. My husband and I got to go on the set for 3 months while they filmed the movie. Most writers don't usually go be part of the movie, so I was really, really lucky. So, we met all the actors. The girl who played Judy Moody was 11 years old and she was from Australia and she had red hair that was kind of messy like Judy Moody. Well, she came from Australia, and in Australia they have a different accent than we have here, so she had to come a couple of months early and she had to get a dialect coach, a person who could help her to learn to speak with an American accent. And, then by the time we started the movie, she was really good at speaking like an American would sound. So, yeah, so we got to meet all of the actors, all the, all the kids who played parts. Do you guys know who Urkel is? I don't, you know Steve Urkel? Steve Urkel, so he plays, Judy has the most wonderful 3rd grade teacher ever, Mr. Todd and Urkel, his name is Jaleel White, plays Mr. Todd in the movie. I know, see, pretty cool. Yeah, so, you've got to go and watch it again and look for him. Yeah, exactly. Anybody else? >> Any questions? >> Megan McDonald: Okay. I think we're done. Thank you all so much for coming to the Library of Congress today to hear stories. [ Applause ]