As a rule of thumb, scheduling an author visit in Syracuse in January is a bad idea. Thankfully, my visit to Walberta Park Primary School bucked the odds, and the weather was great. So were the kids. Thanks to everyone at Walberta, and (especially Becky Murphy and the PTO) for a great visit!
Continue reading →This is the kind of email that makes me smile all day. Rory Davis, a teacher in Guilderland, NY, created a full-sized BackBeard costume for Halloween. I am absolutely in awe.
Continue reading →My visit to Pieter B. Coeymans Elementary today was a little disorienting. It’s the sister school to A. W. Becker, which I visited last year, but it was built as a mirror image. Where Becker goes left, Pieter B. goes right. Even the bathrooms are reversed, which (as one traveling faculty member informed me) can lead to some awkward mixups.
It was great fun. I got to meet an ocean of junior pirates…
see some terrific artwork…
…and even enjoy some Backbeard pirate cake for desert.
A rip-roaring good time all day long. Thanks to Mrs. Doggette and all the volunteers for all their hard work. Outstanding!
Continue reading →Every year, the good people at Williamstown Elementary in Williamstown, Massachusetts put on a week-long festival called “Words Are Wonderful“. This week, I was privileged to be the third and final visiting author of the week (after Trinka Hakes Noble and Candice Ransom) and I had a terrific time speaking to the fifth and sixth grades.
Williamstown is a fascinating school. It was built about five years ago and designed from the ground up to be a “green” school, energy-efficient from top to bottom. In fact, you can even visit their site and see an up-to-the-minute display of their energy consumption. (I just checked, and the solar panels are currently generating 4.6 kilowatts, or about 46 hundred-watt bulb’s worth of power.) It’s not uncommon for the school to generate more power than it uses, and they re-sell the extra back to the utilities.
One of the nicest parts of what turned out to be a terrific visit was the great artwork produced by the students. The younger kids did some Absolutely Not ink blot illusions, and the sixth graders made some of the best Backbeard pirate collages I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Jessica Dils and everyone at Williamstown for all your great work!
Continue reading →There’s always that moment of expectation when you check in at a new hotel. Key in hand, you head off to find your room, scanning the numbers in the halls, looking for the place that will be your home for the next few days. Will it be nice? Will it have a view? Will it have HBO? These are all good questions.
Another good question is: Will it be cordoned off with police-style caution tape?
If the answer is “yes”, you know it’s going to be one of those trips. Evidently, there was some construction in my hotel. One clue was that the check-in desk was a bunch of folding tables with computers on them upstairs in a meeting room. Another clue was the fact that some of the staircases didn’t appear to be connected.
The good news is that the rest of my visit in Burlington was dynamite. Great schools, great kids, great teachers who made me feel welcome. Here are just a few of the highlights:
At Edmunds Elementary students designed their own colorfully-dressed pirates, Ã la Backbeard…
At Chaplain Elementary, Alexandre and Rowen made this cool Backbeard ship out of popsicle sticks…
…and Essa made a great Bean Thirteen illustration…
At C.P. Smith, students designed wedding dresses for a soon-to-be-married teacher in the style of Backbeard…
..and there was much, much more. So who cares if my phone wasn’t connected, my alarm clock malfunctioned, and the guy in the room below was doing construction at eight at night? Burlington was a great way to end this year’s school visit season. Thanks so much to everyone I met this past week!
Continue reading →I spent the past week in Auburn, NY visiting five schools. Here are just a few of the highlights.
At Owasco Elementary, the art teacher drew the most amazing Backbeard mural on the whiteboard in the art room.
Here’s a close-up:
At Casey Park Elementary, I saw this T-shirt in the hallway, attached to an easel. (I’m thinking of having one made for myself.)
In art class, Casey Park students were doing a very interesting project. They were learning to draw animals, and each student created a composition with at least four creatures plus Frieda, hidden somewhere in the scene.
At Genesee Elementary, the teachers came to school dressed in custom-designed boxer shorts in honor of Backbeard. (The strange thing is, none of the students seemed to find this at all unusual.)
Finally, some cool Backbeard pirate maps from Seward Elementary…
…and some Absolutely Not-inspired tessellations at Herman Avenue Elementary.
All in all, a terrific five-day visit. Thanks to everyone at Auburn for all your hard work and enthusiasm!
Continue reading →Recently, I had the great pleasure of sharing the podium with Tedd Arnold at the IRA convention in Toronto. He’s a great author and a really nice guy, but he’s taller than me. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I like to be the tallest author in the room.
Continue reading →Hands down, one of the best parts of being an author is when that first box of finished books arrives at your doorstep. The other day, Bean Thirteen showed up and it’s a real thrill to see it in its final, finished form. Look for it in a store near you.
Continue reading →The last month or so has been unusually hectic, and unfortunately I’ve fallen behind on my school visit posts. I feel terrible, but there just hasn’t been time.
This post is a sort of quick highlight reel of where I’ve been since March. Terrific visits, every one!
A welcome poster at A. W. Becker…
A wall of hand-made Uncle Frank shovels at the Early Learning Center…
A cool “found object” drawing at Jefferson Elementary…
A dotted-line treasure map path at the Albany Academy leading to the library (really helpful after I got lost on a bathroom trip)…
…and a fierce pirate waiting when I arrived…
And finally, an incredible pirate ship and pirate reading chair at Guilderland Elementary School…
To all the schools, teachers, librarians, and volunteers who were such gracious hosts over the past few weeks, thanks again!
Continue reading →I had a fun visit to Skano Elementary today, on the giant Shenendehowa school campus. (Skano is connected by a cafeteria to Tesago Elementary, which I visited last year. They’re like conjoined twins, each with their own separate personality.)
I really enjoyed meeting the kids at Skano. They had great questions and the day just flew by. They’re quick workers, too. By the time I had finished my second presentation, one class from the first group had already put together a pig poster about everything they’d learned in the talk.
Thanks to everyone at Skano, and especially Mrs. Jerwann and Mrs. Kirby-LeMon, for such a fun day!
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