November 1 – National Author’s Day

Happy Author’s Day!

Many elementary schools have special days to celebrate authors. There are Author Teas, when parents and family come to hear the stories their children have written. There are Author Visits, when famous children’s authors come to school and meet the children. And there are Literacy Nights, where all things reading and writing related are celebrated.

Rocket Writes A Story written and illustrated by Tad Hills (2012)

Rocket, the dog, is learning new words. He searches high and low for words to hang on his word tree. He finds words like buttercup, bug, and nest. Little Yellow Bird helps him spell the tricky words. One day Rocket admires their word tree and thinks he should write a story. He searches high and low again for a story to write. From high up in the nest, Rocket smells feathers and pine needles. He is inspired to write a story about Owl. His story begins, “Once there was an owl. She smelled like feathers and pine needles. She lived in a tree.” Rocket worked for a very long time, and when his story was finished he shared it with Owl.

Author Day for Room 3T written by Robin Pulver and illustrated by Chuck Richards (2005)

The kids in room 3T prepared for their author visit by reading everyone one of his books forward, backward, and upside-down. They made banners and put on plays for the kindergarteners. They even set up a reception in the gym with punch, fruit salad, and banana bread. They wrote letters to the author asking him questions. And on the day of the visit they welcomed a very unusual character into the library. The librarian lost her glasses and their teacher disappeared. So the kids conducted their own interviews and offered the visiting guest snacks. Eventually their teacher arrived, just in time to see the guest leave the building with someone from the Animal Talent show. As they were pulling out, someone claiming to be the author showed up explaining that he had gotten lost on his way to the school and apologizing for being late. Of course the kids didn’t believe he was the real author, after all he was just an ordinary looking man.

An oldie, but a goodie…

Arthur Writes a Story written and illustrated by Marc Brown (1998)

Arthur is excited to work on his writing assignment. He knew exactly what he wanted to write about, How I Got My Puppy Pal. But when Arthur shares his story idea with his friends, they all have suggestions on how to make it better. Pretty soon Arthur’s story ends up being about funny purple striped elephants living on Planet Shmellafint, who sing and dance to country music. His teacher, Mr. Ratburn, helps Arthur see that his original story was better than the one he wrote to please other people.

And… Cool Beans… I got to meet Marc Brown at Cincinnati’s Books by the Banks a few weeks ago! So, I’m one happy writer!