A Special Visiting Author
Every year our school invites authors to visit and read to our students, sometimes as a highlight of our Read Across America
Celebration. Each year I am there as an observer in the audience, listening
with the students to the author read and give the students insight
into how they wrote their book, worked hard and achieved success.
This year, however, I had the absolute pleasure of being on the opposite
side of the
audience, because I got to be the Visiting Author!
It is
something that I have wanted to do for years, even before starting the process
of creating "Henry the Green Zebra-Pig." I used to sit in the assemblies,
watching, taking mental notes on what I would do if I had my own book, and wish
that I could share
my story with
my students.
This year I finally
did just that. A handful of the kiddos had already read my story, but most
hadn't. It was awesome to see their reaction when they realized it was my book. I
read "Henry," and then shared some of the details of
how my story came to life. I brought along some of my very first sketches, my
notes and doodles, and my final illustrations. I described how I got the
idea for Henry, how I worked on the illustrations and text, had to fix mistakes I
made and everything. The students asked great questions, and I gave them as much
information as I could.
I enjoyed sharing that it was truly a dream come true to have "Henry"
published. I sincerely hope that my enthusiasm for realizing that dream rubbed off. As a teacher, if I can inspire just one student to go on to do great things, it's worth it.
So now as an author and illustrator, if just one child
reads my book
and gets the idea to create a book of their own, it will be
totally worth it!
In whatever way you can, encourage a child to do something great today.
