This year we were very fortunate to have three visiting authors come to Bell to talk to us about their books and the writing process.
To celebrate Read Across America day, Parkplace Books sponsored a wonderful guest author visit by Samantha Vamos, author of Before You Were Here, Mi Amor and The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred. Students in kindergarten through second grade came to the library to listen to Samantha read her books and talk about what her life is like now as a writer. After her presentation, Samantha autographed copies of her books, including two for our library.
In April, Ann Haywood Leal, author of Also Known as Harper and A Finders Keeper’s Place visited Bell as a guest author. Mrs. Leal lives in Connecticut, but grew up in the Seattle area and used to teach in the Lake Washington School District. Home was Auburn, Washington and Lake Tapps was her summer playground. She visited the 5th and 6th grade students when she came to the west coast to visit and promote her latest book A Finders Keeper’s Place. She shared photos and stories of her childhood and route to literary success.
Our most recent visiting author, was Matt Holm, illustrator of the Babymouse book series. He spent the morning at Bell. If you aren’t familiar with the Babymouse books, they are graphic novels, which are like comic books, but much longer. They are also funny – really, really funny!
Matt co-authors the books with his sister Jenni. She writes most of the dialog and he illustrates. He explained how every book starts with a storyboard, like they do for movies. The storyboard is their book map – it helps them flesh out the details of the plot, illustrations and dialog.
Jenni and Matt don’t live near one another, so they work separately and then email their drafts back and forth. It takes a lot of revisions before it gets to the printing stage! One book took 14 revisions before it was right! Most of their books take about a year to complete.
After the background presentation, some kids had the chance to suggest new situations for Babymouse and come others were involved in a Babymouse “draw-off”! A special huge thank goes to the Bell PTSA for providing funding so Matt could visit our school and to Parkplace Books for supplying books for kids to buy!
Other authors who have visited Bell recent years are author, poet and retired UCLA, NBA/ABA basketball player Swen Nater, Mike Knudson, author of the Raymond and Graham series as well as Suzanne Williams, author of many books for children, including Library Lil. Thank you to the Bell PTSA for providing the funding to bring these inspirational people to our school!