April 4, 2007
On March 8th I visited Parker for Read Across America Day. This is such an important day for students all across the country. It unifies them with the love of reading and literature. What better way for me to celebrate this fine day, but to share my books with a school full of students dressed as their favorite book characters! Their costumes were inventive and hilarious, and really reminded me of the diversity of books out there for young readers. The students at Parker were great to talk to and had some fantastic questions and ideas to share.
Later in the day, the other visiting authors and I were invited to stay for some bagels and fruit and sign some of our books. Overall it was a fantastic day, and I hope I can go back next year, this time maybe dressed as my favorite book character…..
February 9, 2007
I went to my first school visit of the year on February 6, 2007. I was back in the first school I ever did a presentation, Glendaal Elementary. It was six years ago when I needed to hone my skills visiting students. I wanted to share with them my process of writing and illustrating, and in order to graduate from an apprenticeship program I had do a “dry-run” in a classroom. I was able to set up a 3-day stint in my niece Marissa’s second grade classroom. Ms Piria was her teacher, and she graciously allowed me to practice my presentation skills on her willing students. Six years later I was able to shake Ms Piria’s hand once more, and she even branished the project that I had created with her class years ago.
This visit proved to be just as wonderful. I did a 30 min presentation to the entire school first, utilizing my Macbook and all it’s amazing acoutriments. Then I headed to the library, where I planted myself for 6 more presentations with various grades. The students at Glendaal have some of the greatest imaginations I have ever come across. We came up with stories about everything from dinosaurs to dogs, finding magic pickles in the park, and meeting Spongebob Squarepants. Many thanks to Tracy Briscoe for arranging my visit, and Erin the librarian for adding her technical expertise and welcoming me so warmfully to her library for the day.
The first visit of the year was a smash!
