Decatur has certainly become a destination for all authors in recent years.  But there’s something about this city that children’s authors can’t get enough of…even the most popular of the bunch!

Dave over at the Little Shop blog crows modestly about the murder of children’s book authors that have flocked into the city limits in the past couple years, beckoned by our self-described “little” bookshop.  It’s an impressive list.

In the category of picture books, we have hosted Greg Mortenson (#1), Jon Scieszka (#10), and Loren Long (also #10) this year. Greg was here in January after the release of Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and “Three Cups of Tea.” Jon was here in 2008 and just back for the Decatur Book Festival. He is the author of Truckery Rhymes, co-illustrated by Loren Long, who lead this year’s DBF children’s parade.

As for chapter books, Maggie Stiefvater, author of Shiver (#6), was in for DBF. We hosted the great Sarah Dessen (Along for the Ride is at #9) a couple of years ago.

Think he’s finished?  He’s just gettin’ started.

Dave over at Little Shop of Stories alerts us to an event that’s just too big for Little Shop to contain – so they’re taking it to Gaines Auditorium at Agnes Scott…

“Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School At A Time, will be speaking at Gaines Auditorium on the Agnes Scott College campus at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, January 28th.

Greg will be launching two new associated books: a young reader’s edition of this best selling book and Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg & Three Cups of Tea (a beautiful picture book). In 1993, Greg attempted to climb K2 and ended up lost and sick in the mountains of Pakistan. He wandered into a village where he was taken in by its residents and nursed back to health. Greg made a promise to these people that he would return someday and build the children of this village a school. And he did. Since then, Greg’s organizations, the Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace, have worked to build more than 70 schools in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and have brought educational opportunity to thousands and thousands of school aged children where before there was none.”

Little Shop has more details over on its own blog.