You might know Anthony Horowitz as the guy behind the BBC-TV series "Foyle's War." But kids know him as the author of the Alex Rider books, international best-selling adventure novels that have been called "the not-so-secret weapon" in getting boys to read. To launch his newest book, "Crocodile Tears," Horowitz has planned a series of events nationwide that allow kids to "be" Alex Rider by posing for a photo in front of a green screen and then uploading the photo to the Web. (And apparently the resulting pictures will look for all the world as if the kids are falling into the mouths of crocodiles.) The Twin Cities green screen event will be at 1 p.m. next Sunday at the Ridgedale Library, 12601 Ridgedale Dr., Minnetonka. Two autographed copies of "Crocodile Tears" will be raffled off.

Also ...

• If you've never heard Adam Hochschild speak, you need to get to the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday. The author of "King Leopold's Ghost" will read at 7:30 p.m. -- and a graceful, intelligent speaker he is. He'll be there as part of the Edelstein-Keller Visiting Writers Series. Free.

•This week's literary scavenger hunt question: Which Minnesota poet ran for president five times and once said, "If any of you are secret poets, the best way to break into print is to run for the presidency"? This week's bookstores: Minnesota History Center Store, 245 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, and Lake Country Booksellers, 4766 Washington Square, White Bear Lake. Note that next Sunday's clue will not appear in the Star Tribune but you can find it online at http:// twincitieslit.wordpress.com

• First published in 1936, "Tales From a Finnish Tupa," by James Cloyd Bowman and Margery Bianco, has been re-released by the University of Minnesota Press. The Finnish folkstories were translated by Aili Kolehmainen.

• "Total Oblivion, More or Less," a novel by Twin Cities writer Alan DeNiro, will be published in December by Spectra.

•Iric Nathanson's book "Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century: The Growth of an American City" has been published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.

•The nonprofit Grey Sparrow Press of St. Paul has published an anthology, "In the Silence of This Room," a cross-cultural collection of poetry, narrative and photography. The book, edited by Diane Smith, includes works by writers from Scotland, Sri Lanka, Laos, Tanzania, Ireland, the United States and elsewhere. The book is available at select Twin Cities bookstores. For more information, go to www. greysparrowpress.net.

•A new Jane Lawless mystery, "The Mirror and the Mask," by Ellen Hart has been published by Minotaur Books. Hart, who lives in Minneapolis, is a Minnesota Book Award winner and has written many books.

•St. Paul writer and toy inventor Tim Kehoe has a new book: "The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow," published by Little, Brown. Because Vincent Shadow is, like Kehoe, an inventor, the book opens with a warning: "The experiments and activities described in this book can be extremely dangerous and the reader should not attempt to re-create them." Sound advice. But also somewhat tempting.