[ISLMA-Share] Planning an author visit for next year?

Wed May 25 10:36:51 CDT 2016

I am considering having Jordan Sonnenblick visit my school next year.  Here
is the email I just received back from him. Would anyone in northern
Illinois be interested in sharing his visit?

*Thank you so much for your interest in a visit, and for using my work with
so many of your students!*

*On a typical visit day, I do three presentations, plus lunch with a small
group, plus book signing if you choose to sell my books to your students
ahead of time (which I hope you do).  The presentations can be all
assemblies, or a combination of assemblies and small-group writing
workshops of up to 50 students per session.  I like to have an hour with
each group, if possible — especially if we are doing a writing workshop.*

*My assembly program in a school where Drums has been the students’ focus
is all about what I learned through becoming an author (because Drums was
my first book).  I start off my asking the kids to raise their hands if
they think it would be a good idea to be happy when they grow up.  Of
course, most of them do so.  Then I talk about how when I was in middle
school, I used to worry that I wouldn’t be a happy adult, because I was a
miserable kid: my parents were on their way to a divorce; I had undiagnosed
ADHD; I was unathletic and severely asthmatic; I was short and chubby, and
had huge glasses and braces.  I spend the rest of the assembly talking
about the secret of being a happy adult, which in my life has been finding
a way to use my talents to make someone else’s life better.  Basically, I
grew up, became a middle-school English teacher, and wrote Drums for a
student of mine whose little brother had cancer.  The presentation is funny
and interactive, because I ask lots of questions, and often joke around
with specific kids in the audience.  Generally, there is also time for Q&A
at the end.*

*I charge $2,200 for the day, plus actual travel and hotel expenses.  I
live in Pennsylvania, so in your case that would involve flights and a car
rental at your end.  This means the trip would probably only be
cost-effective if we could find a few other Chicago-area schools that would
like me to visit them while I am out there.  If we can line up three or
more consecutive visit days, I generally find that the expenses drop to
around $425 or $450 per day, including flights.  I am all booked up for
September and October, and don’t like to book anything in the North that
involves flights in the winter because of potential cancellations, so
realistically, we would be looking at November or early spring in terms of
dates.*

*If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.*

*Thanks again -*

*Jordan*

*PS - I have a new book about an 8th-grade girl coming out on September
27.  I am trying to remember to tell all the library media specialists who
contact me!  Here is the starred review that will appear in BOOKLIST next
week:*

*«Falling over Sideways.*
*Sonnenblick, Jordan (Author)*
*Sep 2016. 272 p. Scholastic, hardcover, $17.99. (9780545863247).
Scholastic, e-book, $17.99. (9780545863261).*
*Claire feels left behind when her best ballet-school friends are
unexpectedly elevated to a higher class. She spends the first day of eighth
grade coping with menstrual cramps, a zit on her nose, and sniping
classmates. But the worst is yet to come: her father has a stroke, making
speech and movement difficult. After months of looking inward and trying to
carry on normally, Claire realizes she’s been avoiding the obvious: she has
a role to play in her father’s recovery. Although tentative at first, her
response enables her to get beyond paralysis, weather the next storm, and
move forward with her life. Sonnenblick has a knack for smart, droll,
first-person narration, and that’s as true here as in his earlier books
featuring male protagonists. He portrays a diverse group of middle-school
kids as interesting individuals, while creating a believable web of
relationships among them. From her driven-to-perfection older brother to a
vindictive teacher to a mean-girl classmate, the characters and their
dialogue are convincing and often entertaining. The book’s beginning sounds
so much like other, sunnier novels that readers, like Claire, will feel a
jolt when the first crisis comes. But they’ll stay with her every step of
the way.*

Andrea Perrin
LRC Director
Woodland Middle School
Gurnee, Illinois
aperrin at dist50.net

-- 
*Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire -
William Butler Yeats *
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_dy8wzZuE&feature=youtu.be
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_dy8wzZuE&feature=youtu.be>*
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