Author: Loree Burns

On Friday I visited Marlborough Middle School in Massachusetts, where I was lucky enough to …

Talk to three hundred forty sixth graders about TRACKING TRASH;

Shake the hand of science teacher Laura Kirshenbaum, who purchased my visit for her students at a charity auction and is helping those same students color Marlborough Middle School green;

Meet librarian Cathy Rosenstock, who managed every detail of the day, including a tasty homemade lunch served on a real plate;

Lunch with the creative, intelligent, and talented youth in the C.I.T.Y. Kids program, who made me the excellent signs of welcome decorating this post and, now, my office;

Hear about exciting research projects conceived and conducted by students;

Catch up with my good friend and fifth-grader Natalie, who I have known since before she was born.

Thank you Marlboro Middle School … it was a pleasure to spend a day with you!

 

The town of Winchester, Massachusetts totally knows how to throw a book party. Last Thursday the entire town celebrated Authorfest, an annual event in which every public school student at every grade level has the opportunity to meet an author in their classroom. Twenty local authors participated, zipping from school to school and chatting with students about their work and their books. I was one of these lucky authors.

I met with fifth graders at Ambrose School in the morning and talked with them about the making of TRACKING TRASH. I was thrilled to hear how my presentation tied in to some work they are doing in science class. (Good luck with those discovery bottles, Ambrose!)

Later in the day I spoke with fourth and fifth graders at St. Mary’s School. Although these students heard the same presentation, they took our Q&A in an entirely different direction, asking all sorts of interesting questions about the places I visit while researching books. (Thanks for those questions, St. Mary’s!)

When the school day ended, all twenty authors convened at Winchester Town Hall, where our books were on sale to the public. We sat at a looooong table and signed books for students and their families. While surrounded by these folks:

David Biedrzycki

Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Jacqueline Davies

Karen L. Day

Kathleen Benner Duble

David Elliot

Mark Peter Hughes

Judith Jango-Cohen

Steve Krasner

Allen Kurzweil

Brian Lies

Susan Lubner

Scott Magoon

Dan Mahoney

Jeff Nathan

Barbara O’Connor

Heather Panahi

Nancy Poydar

Jamie Spencer

and their hundreds of amazing children’s books, it was hard not to feel a little shy. Lucky for me, though, we were seated alphabetically, which put me right next to David Biedrzycki (pronounced beh-DRICK-key). David doesn’t really allow shy. He forced me to practice my schmoozing techniques. I am not kidding. He whispered talking points into my ear as I signed books. He even drew this little cartoon to cheer me on:

Drawing by David Biedrzycki!

Can I just say for the record that it is hard to schmooze when you are sitting next to an Ace Schmoozer and he is drawing funny things on the tablecloth, making children giggle, and signing books by the stack all at the same time?

It was a pleasure to meet so many young book lovers, reconnect with fellow book creators, and make a new friend or two. Thank you to the entire town of Winchester, and most especially to Ceci Cordeiro and the many, many parent volunteers who made this celebration totally rock.

Happy reading!

P.S. #1
You can see some photos from the massive Authorfest sighing over at Barbara O’Connor’s blog.

P.S. #2
If you book school visits in the Massachusetts area, the list above would be a great place to begin your search for talented local authors and illustrators.

 

Yesterday marked the final stop in my state of Maine mini-tour. Students from Blue Hill Consolidated School, Brooksville Elementary School, Adams School and Penobscot Community School (together known as Union 93) came together on the campus of the Maine Maritime Academy to celebrate the Maine Student Book Awards.

The focus of the day was the ocean environment and students were given the opportunity to visit an ocean vessel simulator (which showed them what it would feel like to be on board a cargo ship cruising at 30 knots), a plankton lab, the vessel State of Maine (where they learned how trash generated on board and at sea is handled) and a presentation by the Calvineers, a group of Adams School students participating in a right whale protection project. They heard a keynote address and several workshops by yours truly, too. It was an intricately woven, perfectly planned event that went off without a hitch, mostly due to the efforts of the amazing school librarians involved. Here are Rick Alexander, Pat Horton, me, Helen Grakowski and Beth Jackson along with an assortment of Calvineers:

The weather was sunny and warm here on the coast and the students reveled in the freedom of good weather and a good field trip. Here they are back indoors, in the Delano Auditorium, waving TRACKING TRASH cards:

At the end of the day, librarian Pat Horton announced the winner of this year’s Maine Student Book Award (drum roll, please)…

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, by Jeff Kinney

(Congratulations, Jeff!)

After the MSBA festivities ended, I had some time to explore the town of Castine, and then for a lovely dinner with Rick Alexander and his wife-to-be Debbie (good luck with all those wedding plans, you two!). The Alexanders gave me a driving tour of Blue Hill, and it struck me along the way that seeing some local vistas at sunset on the first true day of spring Downeast was the perfect ending for a storybook week in Maine.

Thank you, Union 93!

 

Freeport, Maine, makes some people think of LLBean. As of yesterday, that town will forever make me think of Mast Landing School and its vibrant, bustling and enthusiastic third through fifth graders.

Librarian Julia Colvin organized my day, part of which was spent touring her library space. It is a two-story, sunshiney place with lots of nooks for curling up with a good book. Take this red couch, for example, where a group of Mast Landing students snuggled up with, um, well, you know …

The library felt like a community center to me. Students roamed in and out, returning books, checking out new ones, flipping through options in a comfy chair. Those at a loss for what to read need only look to the wall, where Mrs. Colvin had displayed the Maine Student Book Award nominees:

Another highlight of the day was my lunch with students. Let’s just say I would still be there answering questions today—and probably still would not have eaten my sandwich!—if these saavy kids had their way. Their questions were interesting and the intensity with which they examined my answers was delightful.

Thank you to all my new friends at Mast Landing School. I hope we will meet again soon!

Edited to add: Do you know which book won the Maine Student Book Award this year? The votes have been tallied and I got the scoop today. But as that announcement was part of today’s visits, you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear the news.

Edited even further to add: Okay, I’ll give you some hints: This year’s Maine Student Book Award winner is not trashy, but it is a bit wimpy …

 

For my regular blog readers, this might feel like just another post about just another Maine visit, but you have to trust me … my school visits here in Maine have been anything but routine! They continue to be unique and marvelous and full of lovely connections that I will never forget…

On Wednesday, outside the library of the George E. Jack School in Standish, Maine, I was greeted by this flotilla of duckies:

and this sign:

Throughout the day I spoke with fourth and fifth graders about the writing of TRACKING TRASH. The students were fabulous, and in the final moments of my final presentation, a sharp-eyed fifth grader among them pointed out some books in the background of a photo I have shown hundreds and hundreds of times in school visits. It was snapped at my book launch party in March of 2007:

He was pointing out THE LAST DRAGON, a book he adored. But his looking deeply at the image made ME look at it deeply, too … and I noticed for the first time that my friend Sara Lewis Holmes’ novel, LETTERS FROM RAPUNZEL, is also in the picture. How could I have missed that? (Do you see it there, between our faces?) A special photo has suddenly become even more special.

Later, long after I had left the school, I had dinner in Gorham. I was sitting at my table reading a book and waiting for the check when a woman and her son sat at the table next to me. I heard them begin the age-old dinnertime ritual:

“So” Mom said, “how was your day?”

“Pretty good,” the boy said. “We had an author at our school.”

I stopped reading and started listening closer.

“Which author?” Mom asked.

“Well, I forget her name. But she wrote a book about trash called TRACKING TRASH and …”

“Hey! That’s me!” I said.

Or maybe I shouted? It sort of slipped out. It would have been embarrassing, except the boy, bless his heart, shouted right back, “Mom! That’s her! That’s the author who came to school!”

Oh, what a day. Heartfelt thanks to everyone at George E. Jack school for making my Wednesday day so lovely, and to Kevin and his mom for making my Wednesday night so memorable, and to Kris Zuidema for setting it all up.

 

I spent Tuesday in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, visiting with students at Loranager Middle School. Talk about a warm welcome …

Many thanks to Ali, Emily, and all their classmates who worked on these welcome signs; they are still making me smile. And I want to send a special “YOU ROCK!” message to Karly, who dressed up in a trash bag dress and a milk carton hat to bring attention to my visit and the subject of my book.

I took this next photo in the LMS school library, where students were reading and rating books nominated for this year’s Maine Student Book Award:

Can you see all those stickers under Jeff Kinney’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID? That means the Loranger students dig that book. They also dig Linda Urban’s A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT. (Who can blame them on either count?) TRACKING TRASH had four stickers, which may not seem a lot, but they meant the world to me. Blue dots mean the student in question thought the book in question was “the best ever”. If there are truly four students in the world who think that about TRACKING TRASH, well, then I am a happy girl.

Many thanks to the students and faculty at Loranger Middle School. My day with you was warm and bright, despite the remnants of winter swirling outside. Happy reading and thank you all!

 

Cool things that happened while I was in Glenburn, Maine:

I enjoyed a potluck dinner with teachers Deb Crocker, Doretta Callahan, Sari Ohmart, Janet Ecker and Jean Watts.

I spent the night at Serendipity Stables, hosted by Glenburn Elementary School librarian Val Rich; Val even let me help feed the horses!

I listened in as a classroom of seventh graders read TRACKING TRASH together out loud. Seriously!

I talked with groups of seventh and eighth graders about the writing and researching of TRACKING TRASH, and answered clever questions about the ocean, plastic pollution, and saving the planet.

I learned, thanks to those seventh and eighth graders, that it IS spring in Maine; shorts and flip-flops are appropriate. (Who knew? Note to my boys back home: I guess you CAN start wearing shorts to school!)

I had lunch with fifteen student writers. We talked about writing and researching and our favorite books. I read from a work in progress and got insightful feedback from these future authors.

Many thanks to everyone who made my time at Glenburn Elementary School so enjoyable!