Behind the Book Workshops

 

   Late July and early August, I enjoyed working with Behind the Book as a teaching artist. I've worked with this wonderful nonprofit literacy organization since 2007 as a visiting author/illustrator. This summer, I added teaching artist to my resume with them. : )

I had the pleasure of working with students on art projects around the books they were reading and studying. The books and art projects included: I Am Yoga by Susan Verde inspired watercolor paintings; Something's Fishy by Kevin McCloskey inspired undersea mobiles; Sea Creatures from the Sky by Ricardo Cortes inspired deep sea water color, wax resist, sea salt paintings; My Mummy is an Engineer by Kerrine Bryan inspired assemblage sculptures; and The Honeybee Man by Lela Nargi inspired mixed media collages.

   What a wonderful time! : )

Creative Collaboration - Orphan Train Project - April 25

Closing Our Eyes to Envision the Best Cover

As an author/illustrator, much of my work is done alone. However, to create the best possible book, I share my projects with others and benefit from the gift of their reactions, suggestions and ideas.

One of my current projects is a picture book based on a real little girl named Mabel, who lived in a New York City orphanage at the turn of the century. In the early 1900s, Mabel rode an orphan train across the country to a new home in the Midwest.

I have reached the stage in this project where I need feedback from the target audience, young people.

A big "thank you" to Jo Umans, Behind the Book, for arranging a sharing of my book draft with Ms. Amy's 2nd grade class at P.S. 125 Ralph Bunche School, Manhattan, NY, in April.

Before reading the book draft aloud, I set the early 1900's stage, a time when unwanted, homeless and orphan children could be found living on the street. By the 1900's, laws were in effect that these children would be gathered and placed into homes and orphanages. Hoping to leave behind the days when children were left on the street to fend for themselves.

This information prompted students to discuss what an orphan was and to share ideas of what they
would do if they found themselves without parents. I admired their ideas and how they listened to each other and built on ideas and came up with additional plans. It was an empowering situation of coming up with solutions.

Children who rode the orphan trains were the forerunners to today's foster children. Both groups had and have good experiences and bad experiences. One of the classroom students, knowing about what things can happen to children, voiced his concerns about how were we sure that these orphan train children were taken care of. I explained that there were things in place to help with this, but there was no assurance and it couldn't be very thorough, but that we could do things today if we saw something that didn't seem quite right.

This lead to another classroom discussion of who we could trust to report something to if we saw something that didn't seem quite right...we could share our concerns with people that we felt safe with...this could be our parents, or a teacher, or a police officer, etc.

I was so grateful to these students and their teacher for their time, their suggestions and the depth of their compassion and their ideas of taking care of themselves and of others.

Thank you! P.S. 125.

Pen Pals - Linking Generations

Me with Some of the Pen Pals

Last fall, I linked the friends I made in Mr. Braverman's 2nd class through Behind the Book with my senior citizen friends as Pen Pals.

Over these past months, they've written letters back and forth, created gifts and cards for each other and enjoyed knowing that someone out in the world is thinking about them.

This past week the Pen Pals met. It was a truly beautiful sight.

Have You Read This Book Before?

I'm in the midst of author visits with a wonderful 2nd grade class in Brooklyn, NY, through Behind the Book.

This last Friday as I read my book, "Not Afraid of Dogs" to the class, one boy piped up, "Have you read this book before?"

I laughed and said, "Yes, I have."

Like many classes, the student were impressed that I didn't have to look at the words very often as I read the book. Usually, a student asks me if I've memorized the book. : ))

I love working with kids!

The Best Thing About Being an Author - School Visits!

Working with Young Writer.

For the last three weeks, I've been doing a writing / illustrating workshop with 2nd graders at a wonderful school in Brooklyn, NY.

Through Behind the Book, a non-profit organization, I'm able to go and do what I like to do best...work with young people on writing and illustrating their own stories.

Illustrator in Action.

What a great group of students these are! And their teacher...wow! She did work above and beyond what was expected with her students. It paid off big time in how well the students wrote and illustrated their stories, understood structure, setting, characters, conflict, and more.

Because the students did such an incredible job of writing and editing their stories and creating wonderful illustrations, they had time to also write short biographies and draw self portraits.

Handsome Self Portrait

Now, Behind the Book will take all the stories and illustrations and create a book that the students can have in their classroom and school library.

Signing Books for All!

Behind the Book also made sure that every student received their own copy of "Not Afraid of Dogs," which I was very happy to sign for all my new writer friends.

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