Hi from Loudonville, OH! This trip was a delight for many reasons. The only thing that was not so fun was how the airlines misplaced my luggage on a direct flight from St. Louis, MO to Columbus, OH. Urg. But that’s the first time in 12 years of author visits, so I can’t complain too much.

Anyway, The good things about this trip far outweighed this minor disaster. Today, I spoke with the K-3 students of McMullen Elementary, and as you can see from the photo above, these kids are very creative. They also decorated the doors of each classroom throughout the building with artwork relating to my books. What fun. One thing that made it easier for me to do my presentations was the fact that there’s a wonderful public library across the street from McMullen (K-3) and C.E. Budd (4-6) schools. So instead of moving from class to class, I set up in a conference room in the library, and the students from both schools came to visit me. I think the idea of a mini-field trip helped the kids be on their best behavior. Today I worked with the McMullen students. They were wonderful.

For lunch, the teachers prepared an ABC buffet. Each teacher brought a dish starting with a different letter of the alphabet. I got a chance to visit with the teachers about their students’ writing projects and some of my upcoming book ideas. Thank you, McMullen Elementary!

On the afternoon of 5 May, I spent some time talking with 2 groups of upper elementary students. In Florida, there is a significant writing component that has been added to the 4th grade level standardized tests, so they are practicing all the steps of the writing process: deciding on a genre, brainstorming, rough drafts, editing, more editing, reading out loud, and finally the finished work. I spoke at this school in 2001, so some of the students remembered seeing me when they were in kindergarten or first grade. But they hadn’t seen my two newest books, Saguaro Moon: A Desert Journal(2002) and Words With Wings(2005), so it was fun to share them with the students. Thanks, Country Hills!

Today I visited Park Trails Elementary School. Mrs. Marino had been planning this visit since August 2004, and I was excited to finally meet her, and the students! (She also gave me some good tips on how to share my Spanish language translations of A Walk in the Rainforest and A Swim through the Sea with students in her area, so thanks for that!) Park Trails is a very nice school, and huge! It is located in a growing part of Parkland, and had a student body of about 1500 this year. Because of the school’s size, the schedule had to be configured so that I spoke to 2 groups on the morning of 4 May, and 2 more on the morning of the 5th. It was hard to take questions when working with groups of over 400 students at a time, so I was happy to visit with some of the more interested students between presentations, and during the autographing session in the library. Thank you, Park Trails!

The Coral Springs Christian Academy added on to my school visit trip at the very last minute - about a week or two before I left for Florida. I am so glad it worked out to visit with these students! I did one presentation in the afternoon with the 2nd and 3rd graders. It was a little warm, and the students were kind of squished into a small room, but even at the end of the day, the kids were very well behaved. They sat quietly and asked some really interesting questions. They are definitely getting ready for 3rd and 4th grade! We talked about writing, illustrating, inspiration, using our talents to help our communities, and doing our best work. Many of the students came up and talked with me afterwards, and I got several emails from them asking for advice about writing and getting published. Thank you, CSCA!

Hi from Florida! A great place to visit in the spring… I spent the day speaking with the students at Starlight Cove Elementary, and these kids were marvelous. I started the day with a surprise appearance on the Starlight Cove morning news program. Then I spoke in the library, and the groups were pretty large. The last group of the day was a mix of 3rd and 5th graders. They were totally impressive. They filled the entire library, and sat very quietly for almost an hour. Good job, kids! A special thank you to Sharon Pomerants & Christie Connors for setting up this day at the last minute.

Happy Earth Day! I spent the day talking with students at Gables Elementary, in Columbus, OH. It was super fun. There was a delicious catered lunch, and it gave me the opportunity to visit with the teachers, who were all very friendly. In addition to the 4 presentations I gave during the day, I also came back (after my wonderful host teachers took me out for dinner) to visit with a small group this evening. Two students, who interviewed me in the afternoon, dragged their whole families back to the school for the evening talk so they could ask me more questions. I am sure they will be writers someday. Check out this awesome poster that Mr. Miller’s class made to welcome me to their school! Yay! Thank you, Gables!

I can’t believe it! I have been doing school visits for about 13 years, and this is my first time speaking at a school in New York. I had a great time working with the students at Montebello School. I was greeted by members of the student council when I arrived at the school on the morning of 18 April. They gave me a bunch of flowers, and made sure I had some water after my presentations. What excellent hosts! The teachers provided a nice breakfast for me in the library, and I had lunch with some specially selected students. They asked me so many questions that I hardly had time to eat! I could tell that these kids were well on their way to becoming writers or artists. I gave 4 presentations in the library, and the kids were marvelous. I was supposed to visit two different schools in Suffern, but the second one didn’t work out, so that meant I got to spend a little extra time today (19 April) with the older students at Montebello. Keep up the good work!

What a wonderful treat! I got to stay with my sister Katie on this school visit trip! She is doing graduate work at Northwestern University - and happens to live about 10 miles from the school I visited today. Yay! South School seems like a great place to go to school. There were lots of helpful parents at school today, and the teachers seemed very friendly. The walls are covered with beautiful murals, and the whole building is just for K-2. It’s fun to talk to the really little ones, since I wrote my very first book for my mom’s kindergarten class. This is a picture of me with some of my new little K-1 friends. I gave 3 talks, first a K-1 mix, then all the 2nd graders, and then another K-1 bunch. The 2nd graders asked some especially insightful questions. One student wanted to know exactly what my editing process was like. Impressive! And I must compliment the afternoon group - they had the best manners I’ve seen in a long time. I hardly heard a peep out of them when they came into the auditorium. After all the talks, I even got to autograph the Author Chair, which had already been signed by all the other authors who have ever visited this school. (Being a children’s book author has its perks - you get to write in books and draw on furniture!) Thank you, South School! Keep writing & drawing!

After visiting with the Patricksburg students in the morning, I was whisked away, and soon found myself at Spencer Elementary. This school is about twice as big as Patricksburg. Over 700 students! Again I spoke with the younger students first and then the older ones. The older kids seemed especially attentive. I noticed a few who didn’t move a muscle during the entire presentation. I suspect there are some really good writers at this school. It was such a beautiful day, however, that I wanted to march all 700 of them outside for a journaling field trip! Well, maybe next time. Thank you, Spencer!

Hello again from Indiana! (This time I am visiting a different part of the state.) I spoke with the marvelous kids at Patricksburg Elementary this morning. They seemed really interested to hear about the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in Monteverde, Costa Rica. I donate to this rainforest when I can, and with the help of lots of other kids, we’ve been able to protect over 54,000 acres so far. I found out that this school has a program where they sell t-shirts to raise money for rainforest preservation. First I spoke to the K-2 students, and then I talked with grades 3-5. My morning visit to this school was just part of their Young Authors’ Day celebration. These students seemed very excited about writing and making books. Thank you Patricksburg Elementary & keep up the good work!