In School with Behind the Book



Reading "Not Afraid of Dogs"

 Today, I had the pleasure and honor of visiting an incredible class of first graders in Brooklyn.

Wow! They were so full of great ideas, stories, and drawings. So much positive energy and enthusiasm. It was brilliant.

A wonderful part of my life is being an author / illustrator in schools through Behind the Book.

I usually start off my visit by reading, "Not Afraid of Dogs." Then I answer questions from the students like: "Are you bothered by the paparazzi?" and "Where did you get the idea for 'Not Afraid of Dogs'?"

After that, we write a story together. This is so much fun! It gets our brains supercharged.



Writing a Story Together..."Not Afraid of Werewolves"

 Today's story was a surprise...well, not the fact that the class' chosen main character was a vampire. Vampires are pretty popular these days. The surprise for me was that the class kept wanting her to eat someone. lol

Luckily, we were able to steer the character away from eating anyone to being satisfied with fake blood in bottles. ; )

And, we successfully wrote an entire story together - beginning, middle, and end. Our main character, Draculaura, (isn't that an incredible name?) overcame her fear of werewolves.  She even became a friend to one.

Writing a story as a team is so much fun. You come up with things that you never would have imagined on your own.

After our group story was finished, I went around the room to each student to see the stories they are writing and illustrating. Every story has a main character overcoming a fear. It's great to see the creative characters students came up with and the unique ways they found to resolve that character's fear.

Next week when I go back for a visit, we're going to work on illustrating our stories. I can't wait!!

To read more about Behind the Book, Visit:  http://www.behindthebook.org/home.html