Author Adventures

We recently noticed this tweet from Pamela Voelkel, part of the author team J&P Voelkel behind both the Jaguar Stones book series and our Ocotber 26th talk on making the most of author visits:

Look at this @egmontusa: Other authors visit schools, we INVADE them! http://preview.tinyurl.com/m89nltk  (Thanks to @kelleemoye.)

The post that she's referring to is found here from the blog Unleashing Readers.

All this talk of invading and unleashing leads us straight into the adventure side of author visits. There's a lot of excitement to be brought into the classroom when guests can share what they're most passionate about. Check out these intriguing tidbits from the Voelkel site:

• An archive of video interviews with the "real Indiana Joneses"
• Costumes and theater and replacement quetzal bird feathers
• Larvets Worm Snax (yeah, these were mentioned in the last post, but they're going to keep being mentioned until someone gives us a bug to eat)

The Voelkels focus on Mayan culture and Central America. But other authors give a sense of adventure closer to home. Check out this post from an author-educator event where Natalie Kinsey Warnock talked about exploring our own communities and family history.

And for many students, simply being able to interact with the authors behind their favorite books is its own kind of adventure. We can often make those connections when authors happen to be local, and increasingly it's possible with non-local authors, too. Here is some great advice from Kate Messner (who will be speaking at Bear Pond in the spring) on virtual classroom visits. And Skype, a common technology to use for these visits, keeps its own list of classroom opportunities here.

How do you translate the excitement around an author visit into sustained engagement and learning lessons that fit with curriculum goals? Come to Bear Pond Books on October 26th at 11:00 am and join the conversation for finding out the answer.

On Saturday, October 26th, Beard Pond Books presents How to Get The Most of Author Visits with Jon and Pamela Voelkel. The event is free and open to the public. It starts at 11:00 am in the upstairs Children's Room. Non-bug-related snacks provided. The full author-educator talk schedule is available here.