I was greeted by a parking sign, marching ants, and the wonderful Marcia Snyder, librarian at Seven Hills—Lotspeich in Cincinnati, Ohio. The classrooms had done dioramas of undersea scenes for Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! and even made a 3-D pasta machine and listed their own desired “suprpwrs” in celebration of Noodle Man: the Pasta Superhero.

This was the first time I’d seen activities for the new Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out. There were turtle shape poems which looked like ancient, beautiful style art. What about these wild pine cone birds for Bird, Bird, Bird? Extraordinary.

What a lovely school. The science teacher, Ms. Wildfong, showed me the science building. They have lots of animals. It really feels like a science-in-action place.

The music teacher, Ms. Wilson, shared the use of Bird, Bird, Bird: a Chirping Chant. She was teaching kids the half and quarter notes and how to use the staff by getting them to sound out and choose among a few notes to set this book to music.

The art teacher, Ms. Knoop was a wonder. Love her! She’s made a creative space, complete with old plastic toy color wheel, great supply drawers, and projects galore. She partners with another teacher to do a whole big unit on fibers. Ms. Knoop brings in wool from her sheep and they dye it with natural plant dyes and spin it. Wow. Hands on science and history and art all at the same time.

Thanks, Seven Hills, for an inspiring day. Your students and staff are great! Lunching with with these joyful, dedicated educators was a pleasure. Their ideas popped like popcorn. Really, it was like being in some of the great creative meetings I had at National Geographic. You walk away uplifted and refreshed.

“The point of the journey is science and finding the snail!” –Dr. Doolittle, in the movie. Now, just imagine he said math. Hurray! See how the big book (HUGE book) version of One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab took its very first visit, to an elementary school in Ohio! The book is being released March 9th.

I am now offering online author chats via ichat on my mac!

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I’ll be at ALA in Chicago.   10:30 am. on Sunday morning is Nonfiction Book Blast: Booktalks for Reluctant Readers. Expand your nonfiction repertoire as 18 authors booktalk their latest work. You’ll leave with postcards with all the booktalks you can use in your library. I’ll be presenting a brief booktalk on bird storytimes, featuring Honk, Honk, Goose and Vulture View.

My signings: Sunday  Henry Holt 2-3 pm

Sunday Charlesbridge 4-5 pm   Stop by and say hello!

Can’t come? Check out the booktalks wiki for booktalk texts.

Just when I thought the school year couldn’t get any better, it did. Jeff and I drove to the U.P. of Michigan so I could speak at the Marquette-Alger Young Authors Conference.  

Wow. This is the largest young author event I have seen. Over the course of 4 days, about 3,000 students from surrounding school districts were brought to Northern Michigan University.

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Expect more posts to come about my terrific visit to Battle Ground Elementary.  In the meantime, you can go to INK (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids), a group blog for nonfiction authors and see my report about one of the days at Battle Ground. Scroll down to April 23, 2009.

INK blog

A tiara was involved. Need I say more?

I just returned from speaking at the New England SCBWI (NESCBW) Conference in Nashua, NH.  Wow, what a conference. It was well run and chock full of informative sessions. What impressed me was how many sessions were for experienced authors and illustrators. 

There were many nonfiction sessions, even some running concurrently.  I gave a breakout introduction to nonfiction voice and also an intensive for experienced nonfiction writers. For that session I covered structure and voice as tools for digging deeper and making writing more creative. While there I met lots of terrific nonfiction authors, including Melissa Stewart, Loree Griffin Burns, and Lita Judge. 

Really, if their conference is like this every year, go, go, go! I also attended sessions on illustrating digitally, illustrating board books, plotting mysteries, and creating fiction series. Bought a book about comic books and graphic novel creation. Yes, I dipped my toes into all sorts of work. They smartly planned in plenty of time for networking, as well.  Thanks, NESCBWI!

Mrs. Leaphart’s and Mrs. Bates’ Class did some extraordinary writing inspired by the structure of Vulture View and Trout, Trout, Trout: a Fish Chant.

   Val Byrd Fort, media specialist at New Providence Elementary fixed up these great invitations sent to students chosen for a special small group writers’ chat with me. This is a new event I started offering in addition to my traditional large group talks at schools late this school year. I met with only about 12 students each time. And oh, the joy of it!

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