It’s been busy couple of weeks in my school libraries.  We had a great time celebrating creativity, courage, and collaboration during International Dot Day (well, for us, it was a week!).  The hallways outside my libraries are splashed with color in an amazing array of dots.  My 3^rd graders made dot trading cards and we’ve sent them to our Skype partner in Dayton, Ohio.    Most of my classes had the opportunity to Skype with other classes….we chatted with classrooms in Higganum and South Burlington (Vermont), Princeton ( New Jersey), Austin and Weatherford (Texas) and Lexington (South Carolina).  We shared The Dot by Peter Reynolds,  Press Here by Hervé Tullet, colorful dots, and lots of state symbols. Please click here to take a look at our Brookhaven celebration, and here for our Clopper Mill celebration. One really neat result of my Skyping was that I got to meet my Lexington, SC Skype partner, Valerie Byrd-Fort, at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC that same weekend!  Skyping is such great way to collaborate, share a love of reading, teach digital citizenship, and also show our students how small our world really is!

Valerie & Me – Skyping partners meet in person at the 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, DC

Speaking of the National Book Festival, I had a super–dee-duper time listening to the wonderful childrens authors speak about their work.   Suzy Lee had a wonderful multimedia presentation of three of her books: Mirror, Wave, Shadow , and Open this Little Book – she also illustrated the official National Book Festival poster.    Mirror, Wave, and Shadow are wordless books, click here for an article about other great wordless books.  In this article, Susan Dee states, “Author David Wiesner commented once that one of the most valuable characteristics of the wordless book is it’s “endless possibilities for creative interpretation.”   Consider including some wordless books in your lesson plans – I plan to, and will let you know how it goes!

Author/Illustrator Suzy Lee shows us “Shadow.”

Author Jon Sciezska shares a funny story with the audience

Mark Teague’s dinosaur drawing at 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, DC

Jon Scieszka (he said it rhymes with Fresca) had a fun talk about growing up in a family of all boys.  He is the founder of Guys Read website, too!

Mark Teague, was also on the line up in the children’s tent.  He is both an author and an illustrator.  He gave a nice talk about what he loves to do, drew a dinosaur for us , and moderated a long line of Q & As.

Author Lesa Cline-Ransome and her author/illustrator husband James E. Ransome spoke about the creation process, working together, and a lot about their newest book:  A Light in the Darkness. Lesa is a passionate researcher, reader,  and writer.  I encourage you to check out Lesa’s website – you’ll be glad you did!   Click here for a video which shows James as he creates a beautiful watercolor painting from A Light in the Darkness. 

Christopher Myers & Me!

Christopher Myers, son of award winning Walter Dean Myers, gave a wonderful talk about being black in today’s America, and about his new book, H.O.R.S.E. – A Game of Basketball and Imagination.  He said that despite his height (6’7”) he was never a good basketball player ( but that he was good with a pen) and that the basketball games he and his friends played were a combination of creativity, imagination, and physical playfulness.  Click here for a wonderful father-son interview about their collaborative work We are America.

Last, but certainly not least, Newbery Award winner Richard Peck spoke about what it means to be a good writer.  He said that in order to be a good writer, one must first be a good reader.   What struck me the most (besides his eloquent way of speaking!) was that he writes his books six times – 6 times!  He writes, rewrites and rewrites and rewrites, until he gets it right.  He types each version on an electric typewriter – he does not use a computer. He writes from beginning to end. Once he finishes the book, and knows how it ends, without rereading it, he throws out the first chapter and rewrites it, because “the first chapter is the last chapter in disguise,” Typically pulling his opening line from somewhere within the novel, he said said that he can rewrite his opening paragraph twenty or more times.  This is true of his newest novel, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail.

A fun event happening this week is “Read for the Record” sponsored by We Give Books, an online source for free e-books.  Please consider sharing the story Otis by Loren Long with your students on October 3^rd! You may pledge to read on their website here.

Happy Reading!