I’m just back from my most recent expedition to distant lands. I saw amazing things, ate exotic foods, and had a great time. Where did I go? I can’t say exactly, because I ate the map. But it was somewhere in the Clarksville region, beyond where the dragons live.
Upon arrival I was greeted by two wonderful sights: a treasure chest full of all manner of pirate booty, and an absolutely amazing cake, complete with an edible pirate map. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
The chest was overflowing with every type of treasure imaginable, including snacks, a t-shirt, and some very creative messages. These included a connect-the-dots puzzle, messages in bottles, bags of gold, pop-up cards…
…and some terrific illustrations. Here are just a few of the Backbeard interpretations I found.
Thanks again to Mrs. Borys and everyone at Clarksville for such a terrific welcome!
Continue reading →
Over the past month I had the opportunity to visit three schools in the Ichabod Crane school district, Martin Van Buren, Martin H. Glynn, and Ichabod Crane Elementary. Its a wonderful area, home of Washington Irving’s famous creation. I was there a few years ago, and had so much fun working with Jane Miller that she invited me back. I’m so glad she did.
In spite of the district’s reputation for snow days, all four visits went without a hitch. (My recent visit to Fort Lauderdale, however, was nearly cancelled because of our big snow storm. Ironic?) The kids were wonderful, and I had a great time. I also ate some terrific chocolate chip cookies. Thanks to everyone there who did such a nice job rolling out the red carpet.
Today I received some great thank-you letters from the kids, and included with them was this story from the librarian:
“A parent told me that her son was absolutely thrilled to have met you. At dinner that night, he said, “Mom, today I met a real author, and he was still alive!”
Continue reading →
Ok, I’m ashamed to admit this, but it’s going to come out sooner or later: This past week, while upstate New York was suffering through near record snowfalls, I was in southern Florida visiting Country Hills Elementary. Not only that, but it was a great visit. To all my friends and family back home, please know that I feel really, really guilty.
It’s always a little tough traveling a long distance for an author visit, because I’m never quite sure what I’ll find when I get there. That’s why it was such a nice surprise to be greeted by a big gift basket full of welcome cards from the kids at Country Hills.
The next day when I arrived, I found the school full of Absolutely Not- and Backbeard-themed projects. These were really well done and very creative. They ranged from paper bugs, silhouette creatures and computer-generated Backbeards to a giant version of the colorful ship at the end of the book. It stood a good ten feet tall and had a sail made from squares, each individually created by students on the computer. Behind the sail was a fan that made it look like it was billowing in the wind. Amazing.
There was still one more surprise to come. Friday morning, one of the classes arrived at the presentation dressed in clothes that would impress Backbeard. Absolutely nothing matched. Plus, a bunch of kids had stuffed pigs on their shoulders! It still makes me laugh thinking about it.
My sincere thanks go out to Jane Clothier and all the wonderful teachers and parent volunteers I met this past week. You’re all terrific, and your students are too. Keep in touch!
Continue reading →
I spend a lot of time talking about technology in my presentations. So much of my work creating books involves the computer, and I like to share that part of the process when I talk to students. So it came as a pleasant surprise to find that Lake George Elementary may be the most technologically-savvy elementary school I’ve ever visited.
Lots of schools have computers, but few seem to integrate them quite as smoothly and effectively as Lake George seems to. This is a school that streams their concerts over the web, a school where the librarian has her own podcast (check it out here). It also has a very different approach to education, as the school is divided into four separate clusters, essentially small schools within the school, that all share a large common space.
I did my presentations in the Little Theater, which is actually quite large and has an enormous projection screen. I arrived to find the entire back wall covered in artwork, including “Welcome Matts” and projects from my books. Very cool indeed.
Perhaps one of the coolest surprises was when one entire group showed up in the theater wearing home-made pirate hats. It totally made my day.
Thanks to Mrs. McDowell for all her work organizing the visit – these kids were prepared and ready – and to everyone at Lake George who made me feel so welcome!
Continue reading →
Usually, my school visits are a single day, maybe two, but this past week I had the chance to spend four days up in Saratoga at the Lake Avenue and Geyser Road Elementary Schools.
My visit at Lake Avenue was a bit different than usual in that I spent a large part of the week working with the fifth grades on a digital art project. Before I arrived, the students each wrote a fable. My job was to introduce technology to help them design covers. We began by looking at the designs of existing children’s book covers, and I took them through the process I’ve been going through working on the cover of the next Backbeard. Then we got to work.
Students began by using a program called , a great program for digital painting that also happens to be free. (If you’ve never downloaded it, I recommend you go check it out. It’s great fun.) Then, we brought the images into Microsoft Publisher and talked about layout and type design to pull everything together.
Meanwhile, I spent every afternoon across town at Geyser Road, where I met some great kids and had a chance to see some inspiring artwork. Students explored Backbeard’s crazy fashion sense with designs for hats and tunics.
This was a terrific week, and my thanks go out to everyone who helped make it so special. First, to Gail Willner-Giwerc and Kassandra Leal, parent volunteers extraordinaire, who did so much to make me feel welcome. Thanks to all the parents who turned out for the evening reading on Tuesday. Thanks to the kids of Lake Avenue and Geyser Road, and thanks to librarian Sue Demick for the best introductions ever, and finally thanks to Debra Zaffuts, my long-time friend, for all her work pulling this together. What a great week!
Continue reading →
My last school visit of 2006 was at Forts Ferry Elementary, and it was a great way to end the year. I spent two days with the kids talking about books, and I even tried out a brand new presentation on them. They were great sports.
The librarian at Forts Ferry is Mrs. Lynch, and she’ll be retiring soon. I had heard that she was was especially good at doing the voices when she read Backbeard to the students, so it was a real treat when she agreed to read it with me during the presentation.
A few weeks later, I received a terrific packet of thank-you notes from the fifth graders (see a few of the pictures below). Thanks to all the students at Forts Ferry, and especially Mrs. Condon and Mrs. Lynch, for making the visit so enjoyable!
Continue reading →
My last school visit of 2006 was at Forts Ferry Elementary, and it was a great way to end the year. I spent two days with the kids talking about books, and I even tried out a brand new presentation on them. They were great sports.
The librarian at Forts Ferry is Mrs. Lynch, and she’ll be retiring soon. I had heard that she was was especially good at doing the voices when she read Backbeard to the students, so it was a real treat when she agreed to read it with me during the presentation.
A few weeks later, I received a terrific packet of thank-you notes from the fifth graders (see a few of the pictures below). Thanks to all the students at Forts Ferry, and especially Mrs. Condon and Mrs. Lynch, for making the visit so enjoyable!
Continue reading →Just got back from the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) convention in Nashville and it was a fun and strange trip. First, the fun part: I got to see a lot of very cool people from Walker who I’d never met in person before. I met Susan Roth, a terrifically talented author/illustrator with whom I co-presented. And finally, I met all sorts of teachers and librarians from all across the country. It was really a blast.
Now the strange part. The convention was held at the Gaylord Opryland hotel/resort/convention center, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s the biggest building I’ve ever been in in my life. It’s stadium-big, but bigger. It feels like it goes on for miles. It has its own island, surrounded by a river, upon which a tour boat sails. The ceilings are architectural marvels.
A few facts about the Opryland: It has nine acres of gardens under its roofs, a 44-foot waterfall, 2,881 guest rooms, over half a million square feet of meeting and exhibition space, and is evidently located within one-day’s drive of two-thirds of the nation’s population.
It is a very, very strange place indeed.
It’s hard to communicate just how big this place felt. Walking in for the first time I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the building that held my room. It surrounded a courtyard of gardens, bridges, and at least three full restaurants. But this was only a small introduction to what lay beyond, a preposterously oversized city of the future. During my three days in Nashville I never left its walls.
I had a great time at the Gaylord, but after a day or two I had definitely had enough. It felt a little like watching a Twilight Zone marathon; at first the strangeness was engaging and cool, but after a while I longed for fresh air, sunlight, and evidence that the world outside was still alive and well.
Continue reading →First school visit of the year and it was a good one. Last week I visited Loudonville Elementary, just down the street from where I grew up. I had a great time with the kids, and got to see some terrific pirate drawings. Unfortunately, I only have room to show you a small sample of what the kids came up with:
Thanks to Mrs. Stokes, Mrs. Hughes, and all the kids at Loudonville for making me feel so welcome. (Special note to the fifth graders I had lunch with: You guys crack me up.)
Continue reading →
I had a nice visit to North Warren this past week, up in the Adirondack State Park. It’s a small school, K-12, but it’s new and really beautiful. The kids were great, and knew the answers to many of my questions on the first guess.
I was especially impressed by the artwork on the wall, and many of the pieces were projects from this site. For instance, these ink-spot reflection drawings are very clever…
…and these pirate characters are a hoot!
Thanks to Regina Chabarek and the great kids at North Warren for such a fun visit!
Continue reading →
