Barrow’s 2009 storybook parade is now history. We had a wonderful morning celebrating great books and dressing up as characters. Students paraded across the stage, received bookmarks, and had their names announced. After all students crossed the stage, we marched to 5 Points shouting “Read More Books!”. Our 5th graders stopped by Jittery Joe’s and enjoyed some hot chocolate. Thanks so much Jittery Joe’s for treating us like stars. Check out our pictures. It’s not too early to start thinking about what you would like to be next year. 🙂
Category Archives: Events
Geronimo Visits the Book Fair
We were so excited to have the one and only Geronimo Stilton at our book fair. Check out these excited students, teachers, and families who were lucky enough to meet him!
Book Fair is HERE!
Students have been previewing our book fair all day. Please shop with us all next week and invite your family and friends. Here are this week’s hours and events.
SCHEDULE/OPENING HOURS:
Fri, Oct 16 7:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Student Preview All Day
After School Sales 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Mon, Oct 19 7:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Tues, Oct 20 7:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Wed, Oct 21 7:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Thurs, Oct 22 7:30 AM – 7:30 PM
Family Night 5:00PM-7:30PM
5:00PM Story with Plemmons
6:00PM Pics with Geronimo Stilton
Fri, Oct 23 7:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Decatur Book Festival 2009 Day 2
Today, the weather was hot, but it didn’t stop thousands of people from coming out to enjoy another great day of award-winning authors.
The day started out with author Elizabeth Dulemba sharing her story Soap, Soap, Soap, Jabon, Jabon, Jabon. Dulemba takes traditional folktales and reworks them into tales with latino characters. She was an engaging speaker who also demonstrated her artistic talents.
The tent continued to fill as Skippyjon Jones and author, Judy Schachner, made their way to the stage. She shared her latest Skippyjon book with the audience and demonstrated her knack for giving her character a unique voice. While this particular series has been questioned by some as stereotyping Hispanic culture, it was clear that kids were hooked on her books and love the character, Skippyjon. This was also clear in the autographing line. We stood in line for 3 hours and 20 minutes for our autograph. I’m not sure if it was worth it, but I do love having the personalized drawing of Skippyjon that she did in the front of my books.
Another highlight of the day was hearing Jon Scieszka speak. He is the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature. He has a great sense of humor and unique way of twisting what we expect in a story into his own version. He read from the Stinky Cheese Man as well as his upcoming book Robot Zot. His love for writing and storytelling make him a great choice as an ambassador for books.
A panel of authors spoke about writing for middle grades readers. Donny Bailey Seagraves was one of these authors, and I am excited to say that she will be coming to our school on November 3 for Grades 3-5. Also on this panel was Katie Davis and Laurel Snyder. I’ve put all of these authors’ books on our next book order for the media center.
Probably my favorite speaker of the day was Jarrett Krosoczka, author of the lunch lady series. He had the audience fully involved in his reading of Punk Farm, and he pulled kids up on stage to pose in lunch lady attire while he drew lunch lady on the easel. All of his drawing was accompanied by hilarious music written just for his book content.
James Dean was a great way to close the day. His book with author, Eric Litwin, has been picked up by Harper Collins, and they will have a second book coming out soon. James Dean painted while Eric did his singer storytelling with full audience participation. It was fun to end the weekend with a great local connection and remind everyone to support the local bookshops which are a huge part of the success of this festival.
I’m sad to see the festival come to an end, but now I have next year’s festival to look forward to and already wonder which authors will be attending!
Today’s Clips:
2009 Decatur Book Festival Day 1
Wow! At the end of the first day of the Decatur Book Festival, I’m exhausted and invigorated. We are so fortunate to have this book festival in GA. Today I met Loren Long, Peter McCarty, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Kate DiCamillo, Ursula Vernon, Jarrett Krosoczka, Eleanor Davis, and David Lubar.
The highlight of my day was hearing Kate DiCamillo talk about her writing and getting to speak with her briefly as she autographed my books. I was surprised to hear her talk about how much she struggles with writing. It does not come naturally to her, and she really has to wrestle with the words to get them the way she wants them. She talked about how she was not sure that The Tale of Despereaux would ever become a complete story. She went through 9 drafts almost 2 years to get the story we enjoy reading today. What a great reminder that even award-winning authors whom I respect greatly still struggle with getting the story on the page.
Throughout the day I was reminded of the importance of writing what you are passionate about. I was also reminded to make note of any ideas no matter how small. The idea for Mercy Watson came to Kate DiCamillo while she was on a plane. She saw an image of a pig with the name “Mercy” underneath it in her mind. It took 2 years before she found the story that went with the character.
I hope you enjoy my pictures from today, and I encourage all of you to watch for stories. Stories are hiding everywhere. We just need to make note of them and figure out the story that is begging to be told.
Hear clips of Kate DiCamillo’s talk:
Authors Visiting Athens
I just love to hear authors talk about their books and see where they get their ideas and what their process for writing is like. I’ve already mentioned the Decatur Book Festival as a great road trip to take in order to meet numerous authors. However, if you can’t travel that far, there are some authors coming to Athens that you might be interested in.
Carol Hennesy, author of the Pandora series will be at the Athens Borders on August 20 at 7PM and August 22 at 11AM. There will time for Q & A as well as autographing. The Pandora series blends fantasy with information about Ancient Greece and Mythology. It’s a great series for girls, but can be enjoyed by all!
Sunday August 30 2:00PM at the Athens Borders, Donny Seagraves will be discussing and autographing her new book, Gone From These Woods. This book is getting great reviews. She is a local Athens author who has been published by Random House.
Take advantage of these opportunities to meet and learn from published authors.
Coming Soon! The Decatur Book Festival
I wanted to alert you early about a tremendous opportunity coming up in Decatur, GA September 4-6. The Decatur Book Festival brings authors from around the globe to the city of Decatur for a weekend of celebrating great books. Of interest to me (and I’m sure you) is the Target Children’s Stage. This stage will host award-winning children’s authors who will talk about their books and hold autographing sessions. In addition to the Target Stage, there are numerous vendors selling books of all vareities. There are multiple stages which will host authors of adult books as well. Explore the website and see what interests you. I attended for the first time last year and have vowed to never miss this incredible opportunity again. You don’t get to see this many award-winning authors in one place very often. Hope to see you there!
Highlights at the Children’s Stage:
-Kate DiCamillo!!!!!!!! author of Because of Winn-Dixie, Tale of Despereaux, Mercy Watson, Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, & more
-Loren Long-illustrator of books such as Wind Flyers, Drummer Boy, & Toy Boat
-Peter McCarty- author/illustrator of the Hondo & Fabian books
-Judy Schachner-author/illustrator of Skippyjon Jones
-Jon Scieszka-author of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs & The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
-James Dean-artist of Pete the Cat
Meet a Local Author
Who knew that I have a Random House author living just down the street from me! In today’s Athens Banner Herald, I read about Winterville resident Donny Bailey Seagraves, author of Gone from these Woods. On her website and in the article, the book is described as one for middle readers, although I’ve read reviews that recommend it for grades 4-8.
The author will be reading excerpts of her book at the Winterville Library on Saturday July 25 from noon-2PM. She will also be at Borders bookstore on Sunday August 30 at 2PM. Her book has ties to Athens, Winterville, and Watkinsville. It is set in the 90s and is about a boy who accidentally kills his uncle on a hunting trip. The book also shows the boy’s struggles in dealing with this terrible incident.
I hope many of you will take advantage of these opportunities to meet and talk with a published author. If you go, post some comments about what you thought. More appearances by the author are listed on her calendar.
I’ll be posting more author appearances throughout the school year.
5th Grade Skidaway Trip
The 5th grade just got back from a great trip to Skidaway Island to learn about GA’s Coast. While we were there, questions kept popping up from our students. I heard adults say numerous times that those questions would be great things to look up. What a great opportunity for us to learn about information literacy. As our year comes to a close, I encourage all of those students to keep asking those questions and searching for the answers in books, magazines, encyclopedias, databases, and the Internet. Here’s a video of our trip and some pictures from the journey.
5th Grade Poem in Your Pocket
As promised, here is a clip from the 5th grade’s poetry reading during Poem In Your Pocket Day. These students wrote some amazing poems and got up in front of the entire 5th grade to read them. Bravo!
Expect the Miraculous 