WATERVILLE, ME -- To help celebrate the arts in Waterville and the inaugural year of the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, Colby College is pleased to announce that acclaimed author Mo Willems will speak at Colby and receive an honorary degree on Monday, March 18. The College, Waterville Creates, and the Waterville Public Library will offer associated events for community children on March 16.
Best known for his #1 New York Times bestselling picture books—Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!; Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity—Willems is a beloved author, illustrator, animator, and playwright. He was the inaugural Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence (2019-2022) and continues to collaborate on creating projects involving classical music, opera, comedy concerts, dance, painting, and digital works. He began his career as a writer and animator on PBS KIDS’ Sesame Street, where he garnered six Emmy Awards (writing), and last year published Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! 20th Anniversary Edition.
Willems will receive an honorary doctor of fine arts degree, the highest honor the College bestows to recognize accomplishments and achievements that reflects its ideals, values, and aspirations. Willems will engage in a conversation with Tracey Keevan, an editorial director at publisher Union Square & Co., about his creative process and how he built a career that spans multiple modes of creative expression. The event, at 4 p.m. in the Performance Hall of the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, is free and open to the public.
In celebration of his visit, the Waterville Public Library will host a read-aloud of his books at the Waterville Public Library on Saturday, March 16 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. The event is for children and their parents and caregivers, and participants will have the opportunity to take photos with Willems’s iconic Pigeon character. Free copies of the newest book by Willems, The Pigeon Will Ride the Roller Coaster!, will be available while supplies last.
Also on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Waterville Creates will host an “ART-ivity” event for children of all ages at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center on Main Street. Activities from Willems’s We Are in an ART-ivity Book!—drawing, coloring, sculpting, gaming, puzzling—will be available to complete at the center, and copies of the book will be provided while supplies last. Pigeon will also be attending this event and will continue to be available for photographs.
Read more here: https://news.colby.edu/story/a-weekend-in-waterville-with-mo-willems/
* Photo by Chris Fortuna