Scholastic editors Arthur Levine and Cheryl Klein are filmed for Scholastic's Fall 2014 Online Preview that will be available online May 14. All photos courtesy of Rocco Staino.

On a recent April 15 visit to Scholastic's filming of Fall 2014 Online Preview for upcoming titles that took place in Scholastic's New York City downtown headquarters —the preview video goes live on Scholastic's website May 14—I was given a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes production. Scholastic editors Arthur A. Levine, Andrea Davis Pinkney, and David Levithan—all published kid lit celebrities in their own right—took center stage during the filming. It was charming to watch Levine, the man who brought us J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter, interact with fellow Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein as they prepared to discuss Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s The Scarecrow’s Wedding (July) and Caryn Yacowitz and David Slomin’s I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel (August). I suspect one of the highlights of the preview video will be Levine and Klein’s duet of the re-worded children’s song classic “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

Scholastic editor and author Andrea Davis Pinkney.

The singing editors may be a hard act to follow, but Pinkney was up for the challenge. Pinkney, author of Bird in a Box (Little, Brown, 2011) gave an equal performance regarding the upcoming books that she’d edited. The books include Katherine Erskine's The Badger Knight (August) and Sharon Flake's Unstoppable Octobia May (September). While there, Pinkey also filmed an introduction for Erskine, who recently won a Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Award for her book Seeing Red (Scholastic, 2013). Other authors dropped by for the filming, such as Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, who joined their editor Levithan to discuss their co-authored book The Iron Trial (September), the first book in the “Magisterium” series for middle school. Author Raina Telgemeier discussed her book Sisters (August), which is the companion book to her Eisner Award-winning graphic memoir Smile (Graphix, 2010). And as luck would have it, I had the pleasure of meeting debut children’s author Patrik Henry Bass and illustrator Jerry Craft who collaborated on the book The Zero Degree Zombie Zone—out in August.

Author Patrik Henry Bass and illustrator Jerry Craft.

The Scholastic Fall 2014 Online Preview Video will present over 30 upcoming titles and goes live on May 14. (Note that until May 14, the link http://www.scholastic.com/onlinepreview/ goes to Scholastic's Spring 2014 Online Preview Video.)