Originally posted by britney: Is there anyone out there who can recommend an author to speak to the children in grades 4-6. There are many names out there, but hard to find one tried and true. Thanks!
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current event on Bushmeat, author uses a stuffed monkey to draw attention to the problems in Africa. I would image you'd have to pay for airfare, unless you are located in Missouri. They may require you sell X number of books,,, adult read.
I would defininitly recommend Richard Lynn Stack. He came to our school a few years ago and the children just loved him. He writes stories about a stray dog that showed up at his door. He spend all day at our school talking to the kids after the assembly and sitting with them at lunch. He teaches about being an arthur and self motivation without preaching or boring the kids to death. [img]tongue.gif[/img] It was well worth it to have him and the kids love having autographed books in the library.
Our school hosts a different author each year. One year we shared an author with 3 other schools. We divided the expenses and his time.
This year we had Jean Eckman Adams. She gave a presentation to the kids about writing and illustrating thier own books, explaining that artists can be messy and that you don't have to be perfect the first time. She had a large easel of paper and went through the creative process with the kids, making up a story from thier ideas. The librarian is going to frame the sheets of paper and put them up for display next year. It was great.
We did something fun this year during library week at the school. We contacted community members, parents, the mayor, police station, etc..
We asked them to come and read for 15-30 minutes. Each class/teacher chose a 15-30 minute time slot and that person chose a book, told who they were and read.
The kids thought it was awesome and it got the community involved in a reading for the school/town.
The kids didn't know the diff between an author reading to them or someone else, they just thought it was cool.
Along with the library, call your local bookstore for suggestions. They'll know who's local. That always costs much less. Also find out from the school librarian what the hot books are. Then check and see if the author has a website. Usually you can find out where they're located and email them regarding appearances. If they are any good, they usually are pretty expensive. You also might try working with another school to see if two appearances might lower the cost. A little additional note is that I let the bookstore know when the author is coming and send notices home to the parents so they may purchase books in advance. Then, on the day of the assembly, we have a sticky note with the child's name in each book collected by classroom. The author then signs them in between presentations and we return them to the classes. It makes things much smoother.
Be careful when choosing an author. They can be expensive and not worth it. Check with your local library and they can provide you with a list of authors in and around your area that you can contact for your school. Believe or not there are a lot of them and tell them your a non-proft organization so maybe they won't charge as much.
