On Tuesday, May 31, 2022, I had an excellent author visit at Franklin Magnet School in Glendale, California, as part of the Authors and Illustrators in the Schools program sponsored and organized by the Glendale Assistance League. I especially thank Linelle Vincenti and Kathy Blyth for all their support and making sure that everything ran smoothly. I was one of five authors at the school. I met with four groups of first graders, each class for about thirty minutes, sharing my books and my life as an author and answering questions from the students.
Franklin is a language immersion school with students learning Spanish, French, German and Italian. I managed to begin each presentation by greeting the students with Buenos Dias, Bonjour, Guten Tag or Buono Giorno, but otherwise gave my presentation in English. In the Spanish immersion class I shared two of my books that have been translated into Spanish, A Zebra’s World (El Munde de las Cebras )and Your Skeletal System (El Sistema Oseo.)
In the German class I shared several of the many books available on Amazon as Kindle books in German, including Giant Shark (Megahai).
In the French class I showed a translation of A Platypus’ World (Le Monde de l'ornithorynque) that had been made for me on a visit to Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley when my granddaughter was a student there. Unfortunately, none of my books have been translated into Italian.
I talked about gardens–featuring my new book PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6: From Seeds to Salad, as well as my fiction book WIGGLE AND WAGGLE (reading the first story and singing the gardening song with my Wiggle and Waggle sock puppets), and sharing my miniature garden inspired by Mr. McGregor’s garden in PETER RABBIT by Beatrix Potter.
The mascot of Franklin School is the owl, and that prompted a discussion of my books about birds, including A BALD EAGLE’S WORLD, HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 and A Day and Night in the Forest (which has an owl on the cover.) I also showed the children my collection of feathers and my ostrich egg.
Altogether, it was a full and satisfying day!