City-State Story Hour Reading: Perkin’s Perfect Purple

705 Edgewood Street Northeast,Washington DC 20017

29 January, 2022

Description

Join us for a family-friendly Story Hour at the taproom with Perkin’s Perfect Purple author Tami Lewis Brown! We are thrilled to welcome author Tami Lewis Brown to City-State for our January Story Hour event!Tami is the author of numerous children's books, including Perkin’s Perfect Purple, which tells the fascinating true story of how a boy chemist accidentally invented the world’s first synthetic dye. Perkin’s Perfect Purple is about innovation, imagination, and serendipity. Along with the book reading and Q&A, the event will feature a special activity for kids to explore color and the scientific process. ABOUT THE EVENTThe event is free and open to the public, but we request that you RSVP so we know how many people to expect. Flights and pints of City-State’s full lineup of beers will be available during the event, and there will also be snacks and house-made non-alcoholic beverages for kids. Pre-order a signed copy of the book and you’ll get $5 beers during the event! Select the “Free RSVP + Signed Book Pre-Order” option on Eventbrite. ABOUT THE BOOKMany years ago, the color purple was available only to a privileged few. Making purple was tricky. The dye was concocted from a certain snail, and later, from plants, bugs, and rocks. Then it had to be soaked in minerals and . . . urine! The process was very complicated and expensive (not to mention smelly!) — until 1856, when a boy named William Henry Perkin invented a new way. While testing a hypothesis about a cure for malaria, he found that his experiment resulted in something else — something vivid and rare for the times: synthetic PURPLE. Perkin, a pioneer of the modern scientific method, made numerous advances possible, including canned food and chemotherapy. But it was his creation of purple that started it all. ABOUT THE AUTHORTami Lewis Brown has written picture books, biographies and novels for children. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College where she has been a member of the Board of Trustees for more than a decade. After leaving a career as a trial lawyer she became the writer-in-residence and librarian at The Sheridan School in Washington, D.C. She now writes books for young people full time. Tami grew up in Kentucky and attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Now she lives in one of the oldest houses in Washington, D.C. and on the banks of Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. If you have questions, please reach out to our events team at [email protected].