Mystery/suspense author April Henry visited our library on Monday, and it was a wonderful day! Many of the students read her books, and teachers read some excerpts from her books, and she had some
really interesting stories to tell.
Here she is during her presentation (that's an ASL interpreter next to her):
A bunch of schools in my area got together to host her visit, so we shared the expenses of hotel/food/airfare, and then we each paid her speaking fee. At my school, she gave a writing workshop to a group of seventh graders, and then spoke to each grade level (6, 7, 8) in the gym during their electives time. She also had lunch with a small group of students.
Here she is during the writing workshop. The kids loved it, and some even brought her more writing to read later in the day (which she did read AND comment on) on the way home in the car. Amazing!
Before her visit, we did a few things to make our school look welcoming, and one of our favorite things was re-creating her books' covers using our own students' faces. I will post them here side by side (maybe... if I can figure that out), so you can see how much the kids got into it. After we took the pictures, I did a little Photoshopping magic (without using Photoshop OR magic), and we gave her copies of these:
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| Original cover |
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Our cover
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| Another cover we made |
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| Original |
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| Our version--she held her own hand over her mouth, so it's not as scary as it looks! |
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| Our version #1 |
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| #2 |
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| #3 |
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| The real cove |
