Bedford Playhouse Book Club: Metropolitan Stories: The Bedford Playhouse is also launching their new Bedford Playhouse Book Club series from their book club curator Elisabeth Weed. Elisabeth will speak with critically acclaimed authors each month, alternating between adult and young adult titles. The first event in the series will debut on Tuesday, May 11 with a chat with Christine Coulson, author of Metropolitan Stories. The novel draws on Coulson’s twenty-five years of experience working behind the scenes at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Book Club series continues on Thursday, June 17 with Mike Curato, whose new book Flamer was awarded a 2021 Golden Kite Award Honor for Illustrated Book for Older Readers by The Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators. Mike is a writer and illustrator whose Little Elliot, Big City series launched in 2014 and now has five titles. He has also illustrated for children’s book authors Samantha Berger, Margarita Engle and Trudy Ludwig and contributed to What’s Your Favorite Color by Eric Carle and Friends, and Sunny Day: A Celebration of the Sesame Street Theme Song.

The series returns to an adult book from Adrienne Brodeur, Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret and Me on July 13. And it will conclude on August 10 with a discussion with Fracisco X Stork about his young adult book, On the Hook. A story about a chess team champion who is targeted by a gang member.