Image source: http://www.theinventionofhugocabret.com/about_brian_bio.htm

G5 students recently completed a mini-inquiry on author and illustrator Brian Selznick. After reading his first ever published book, The Houdini Box, together and brain-storming some questions, students broke up into small groups to conduct their own inquiries. After exploring his books and searching for information in World Book, our online catalog and the two websites accompanying his most famous books (The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck), numerous questions were answered, e.g. Brian Selznick is 46 (but will turn 47 this July), he is originally from Brunswick, New Jersey, but now lives in Brooklyn, New York and San Diego, California; he is single and has no children but several nephews and a niece; while he has been writing as long as he can remember, his first book was published in 1991; he got the idea for his first book while working in a bookstore and decorating/painting the windows there; he has so far written four books but illustrated close to 30; his favorite book is The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

However, we were left with an equal amount of questions to which we hadn't found the answer, e.g. where does he sit when he comes up with ideas, when will his next book be out and what will it be about, how did he come up with the unique style for his books, how much did he get paid for Hugo. Most probably we would need to ask him directly (and might still not get an answer to all). While some authors can be found on Twitter or share their contact information via their website, this was not the case here, unfortunately. It would have been our biggest wish to talk to him via Skype but so far no luck. Nevertheless, our wonderful students made up for this by creating their own little interview skits, thereby sharing the information they had so far discovered with their teachers and peers. Below just a little taste of what the skits looked like.

If you haven't seen any of Brian Selznick's books yet, have a look at the following book trailers/interviews. I am sure they will enchant you as much as they enchanted us. The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck are two absolute gems, very unique as the stories are told through words and images. Just ask your child - or even better, get a copy of the books to add to your family's summer reading list. You won't regret it.

Grade 2 students recently shared their learning with each other about their inquiry into Australian author and illustrator Mem Fox. Having been the last author inquiry of the year, students worked mainly independently in small groups, just receiving little guidance here and there. They came up with their own questions, plans on how they wanted to find the answers to these questions and the way they wanted to share their learning. They searched independently for information in books and on websites, making use of search strategies they had already practiced during past inquiries (e.g. searching the World Book Online Encyclopedia and the online catalog). Then they shared their learning with each other. It was interesting to note that even though all groups shared some basic personal information on the author (e.g. age, place of birth, family), each group came up with a piece of information that none of the other groups had mentioned, e.g. that Mem Fox's favorite book is 10 Little Fingers and 10 Little Toes, that she loves chocolate mousse, chocolate fudge and sleeping, and that she helps teachers to learn how to better teach reading and writing to children. 

Well done, G2 inquirers!

There was much excitement in the library this afternoon as grade 1 students came for their weekly library visit and discovered a letter by Robert Munsch which I had projected on the whiteboard. As part of our inquiry, we had written to him several weeks ago. Now we were finally having answers to our many questions. You will notice below with how much detail the author answered our questions. I promised students that I would post the entire email on the blog so that they would be able to read through the text with time and at their own pace as well as be able to share it with family and friends. I will send pictures of the posters the students created today to Robert Munsch to thank him for making the time to write such a detailed email to us. It definitely got students even more excited about his books - and we have ordered more to add to our collection next year.

Robert Munsch's email, received April 29, 2013 
(I changed the formatting of the text to make it easier to read for our students):

Hi Kids:

Thanks for writing.

Questions & Answers:

What made you want to become an author?
Originally, I didn't plan on becoming an author at all. First I thought I was going to be a clown and then I wanted to be a farmer and then I thought I was going to be a Catholic Priest and then I thought I was going to be an anthropologist and then I thought I was going to be a daycare worker. When I was working in daycare I told kids stories all the time. Finally, my boss decided I should turn the stories into books and he told me to write a book. And that is how I became an author. Once I became an author I found it was very nice being an author and I wished I had done it a lot sooner than I had.

What is your favorite book?
You know that changes every day. Some days I like Love You Forever most because it sold the most copies. Other days I like David's Father and Andrew’s Loose Tooth and Something Good and Makeup Mess because they are the books that have my own kids in them. Other days I like Mud Puddle the best because it was my very first book.

Tell us about your family?
I have a wife named Ann and three kids (who are all grown-up now) - TYYA is 25 and lives in Guelph, Ontario. ANDREW is 30 and lives in Toronto. JULIE is 34 and also lives in Toronto. I have 8 brothers and sisters. Their names are Mary, Margy, Tommy, Dicky, Billy, Jimmy, Jacky and Kathy. I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It has 90,000 people and a University. It is surrounded by farms. My house is next to a hill. I have an office in the basement.

Where do you get your ideas?
I get my ideas for books from my own kids and sometimes from other children. Often when I am telling stories I will say I am going to make up a new story. I get a kids name to use in the story and I still don't know what I am going to say. I just say whatever comes into my head and see if it's good. Usually it isn't. But sometimes it is very good. Lots of my books have started this way.

How many illustrators have you worked with?
I have worked with eleven different illustrators. Michael Martchenko has done most of my books, but a few of them have been done by other illustrators:

Vladyana Krykorka did A Promise Is A Promise.

Sheila McGraw did Love You Forever.

Suzanne Duranceau did Millicent and The Wind.

Sami Suomalainen did The Dark and Mud Puddle.

Gilles Tibo did Giant.

Alan Daniel did Good Families Don't, Get Out of Bed and Aaron’s Hair.

Shawn Steffler did Get Me Another One

Helene Desputeaux did Purple, Greenand Yellow and Where is

Gah-Ning?

Eugenie Fernandes did Ribbon Rescue

Janet Wilson did Lighthouse.

Can you visit our school?
Since my stroke I have not resumed any class visits, private storytelling, festivals, fundraisers or conferences. I did do some concerts and touring but I announced just recently that I will not be touring any longer.

My newest book is called “Seeing Red” and is about a kid who wants to be just like his best friend who has red hair. His friend promises to teach him the secret trick for turning black hair to red! My next book is about a kid named Victoria whose Grandmother takes her to a very fancy restaurant for her birthday. I think the title will be “Swamp Water”.

Can I be in one of your books?
Most of the kids who are in my books are there because I used their name when I was making up a new story during a storytelling. For example; Olivia, the kid in "Wait and See" was in kindergarten in 1985 and I was telling stories in her class. She put up her hand when I asked who wanted to be in a new story and I made up a story about her. In 1993 her story finally got into a book. So, getting in a book is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. It just sort of happens. Lots of kids ask me to be in books, but it is the kid who happens to be in front of me when a good story comes along that will be the one who gets in. Lots of the stories I make up are not really that good and they don't get into books. So there are a lot of kids whose names I use at storytellings who don't get into books because the new story isn't good enough.

What are some of your favorite things?
My favorite color is black. I am the only person I know who has black as a favorite color.
My favorite food is Mango Salad.
My favorite movie is a very old movie from the sixties called Mondo Cane
My favorite holiday is Halloween
My favorite animal - dogs. I have two dogs: Guinness, a large black Standard Poodle and Winston, a small Yorkshire terrier.
My favorite things to do: walking my dog, riding my bicycle and reading.

Thanks for reading my books.

Bob Munsch

Every group got some materials (e.g. poster paper, markers, a picture of Mem Fox) but it is totally up to the groups now how they want to use these materials in recording their learning. I also told students that it was up to the group to decide the way in which they ultimately wanted to share their learning with their peers and teachers.

Through yet another inquiry, students not only get to know another author but also have the opportunity to practice their inquiry skills, such as going through an inquiry cycle, formulating questions, searching World Book and the online catalog. It is impressive to see with how much confidence and enthusiasm students approach the task and I therefore can't wait to see the results.

Kindergarten students are currently inquiring into a unit under the transdisciplinay theme Where We Are in Place and Time, looking in particular at toys and games. One of the key concepts driving the unit is reflection. I thought this would provide a good opportunity for us to reflect on some of the things we have learned in the library so far this year, while connecting to the learning in the classroom through one of the key concepts.

We began by brainstorming a list of authors we got to know through the library and classroom so far this year. In a next step, we wondered about where to find books by these authors in our library and in the process revisited the make up of call numbers. Call numbers consist of two parts, the first indicating the section (here: E for Everybody section), the second giving the first three letters of the author's last name.

Students also got a chance practicing to create call numbers - and had much fun with this! We imagined that we had written a picture book and then worked out what the call number would look like and where on our shelves the book would consequently be found. Knowing about the way materials are arranged in the library helps students in locating books by favorite authors independently. It is also a pre-requisite skill for using our online catalog. 

During our read-alouds, I currently cover the author/illustrator information and let students make guesses about who the author/illustrator might be. We so far enjoyed: I Want My Hat Back, This is Our House, and Dogs. While students were not yet familiar with Jan Klassen, they recognized Bob Graham's illustration style (even though they were not able to name him yet) and did a fantastic job in identifying and naming Emily Gravett. She has definitely made an impression on our students.

Below is a cute book trailer for the most popular title of the three books. There were many questions at the end of the story whether the bear had eaten the rabbit or not. We agreed that he hadn't - but that he had just taken his hat back and chased the rabbit away.

One of the best ways of getting students excited about reading (and writing) is introducing them to authors, not just through reading aloud selected titles or excerpts from their books, but by letting students find out more about the author as a person. Where do they come from, what kind of family do they have, what was their childhood like and similar questions. Students are usually curious about finding out where authors get their ideas from, how much time they spend editing, whether they think writing is a difficult task and what inspired them to become an author. The answers provide kids with good advice for their own writing and even more importantly often inspire and motivate them to read and write themselves. Hearing from a successful author that they might not have always enjoyed reading and/or writing, that they spend long hours editing their work, that the hardest part is coming up with ideas, seems to take off some of the pressure kids can feel when struggling to read or write. Therefore I try to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to meet authors, e.g. through read-alouds, author inquiries, author visits, or meet-the-author sessions. 

Nevertheless, it is wonderful to see with how much enthusiasm and interest students also search for answers to their questions about authors in print and online resources. Last week, students in grades 3-5 began searching for answers to their questions about Tomie dePaola, Roald Dahl and Brian Selznick respectively. This is not just an opportunity to learn more about an author but also for students to demonstrate and practice search strategies, beginning with the Wold Book Online Encyclopedia, then moving to our online catalog with Library Search (for books) and WebPath Express (for websites). We will continue this in the week to come before sharing what we have found out.

I just discovered that the beautiful video Ellen Leou shared with us during her visit is now uploaded on YouTube and her website. I know all Kindergarten students will be as excited as I am about this! I hope that looking at the video will make many more of our readers interested in reading about Lulu's adventures around Hong Kong. We have a copy in our library - but the book is also available in bookshops throughout Hong Kong. Enjoy!

I had promised to write more about our author visits during Literacy Week to give credit to the amazing experience they provided for our youngest students. I had begun the week prior to the visit with tuning students in by showing them a picture of the author and giving them a sneak preview of the picture book they would read: The Sand Turtle for PK1 and The Mermaid and the Pink Dolphin for PK2. There was immediate excitement about the prospect of a real author visiting – but also some disappointment that I wouldn’t read the story right away. Since the author was shown in the picture with a dog, the children wondered whether she might bring her dog along. This was a wonderful springboard to getting them to express their wonderings and questions. So each class made a poster with all of their questions for the author. Writing the questions down then and there would help us to remember them during the author’s visits. I wouldn’t have had to worry though: it was impressive how well students from both grades remembered their personal question on the day of the visits.

PK2 students were the lucky ones since they got to hear not one, but two of the author’s stories. Ms. Whittington began with reading The Mermaid and the Pink Dolphin – to the delight of the many mermaid fans in PK2.

As I sat at the back among some of our students, enjoying the story, one of the students whispered into my ear, “when is the author coming?” and only then did I realize that not everyone had made the connection from the picture on the poster to the lady sitting at the front of the room (especially since she hadn’t brought her dog along, as someone noticed). So we quickly made sure that everyone was aware that Ms. Whittington wasn’t just the reader of the story but the person who had written and illustrated it. While there were some excellent comments about the story, showing how aware our young inquirers already are about the impact we can have on our environment, the majority of remarks and then questions were related to mermaids. Had she actually seen any, or a mermaid’s tail, or a scale from a mermaid’s tail? There was aw and magic in the air, as the children listened, their eyes wide open. Yes, said Ms. Whittington, she has seen and sees mermaids, very clearly… in her imagination! I was curious to see the children’s reaction – and happy to notice that they were pretty content with the answer. Everyone was really excited when Ms. Whittington offered to share another story. So PK2 students also got to hear The Sand Turtle. 

I appreciated Ellen Leou’s honesty with students when talking about the writing process. She told students that starting to write is really hard and that it takes a lot of effort to do it well, that the editing and rewriting process can be pretty boring. Yet, she encouraged students to persevere. "Writing is hard work, you keep on trying and trying until you get it right. So don't get discouraged if it doesn't work out right away." She said that trying out stories on a friend was a great way of finding out whether they were good or boring.

It was also interesting to hear her explain how she starts of and what media she eventually uses for her illustrations. Ellen always begins with the writing process. Once that is completed, she says she has the pictures clearly in her head which makes it easier to work on the illustrations. While she uses different media for her illustrations (e.g. water color, ink, pencils, Chinese brushes), she always starts out with pencil drawings. That's not surprising when looking at the illustrations which have such fine and delicate patterns. Just look a the Chinese vase on one of the first pages, drawn with so much love for detail. Amazing!

Ellen kindly stayed on after the visit and shared some more information with me about herself and her writing. One of the things that I always find most interesting when learning about an author is their motivation to write. Ellen Leou said that she loves reading. She loved and read all day long when she was little. That is definitely a perfect reason to become a writer!

Since the author's visit, whenever I run into a kindergarten student, Lulu, the Hong Kong Cat is mentioned at some point. There is still so much talking, so much excitement about the visit in the air, it is wonderful. During the past week, we made some more time, to reflect about the experience and to think about what we learned from it. Our kindergartners did a wonderful job in sharing their learning through writing, drawing and speaking. Here a few examples:

- the author writes a lot about Lulu
- the author's real cat is also called Lulu
- the real Lulu also has no tail
- the author got Lulu from her friend
- the author puts many animals in her stories
- there are different settings in the book
- she is a good story writer
- writing stories is hard
- authors know their stories so well they can tell them without looking at the words.

The number one question, on the other hand was, where and how the book can be bought! And isn't this exactly what we are hoping for our students when we invite authors, that they mesmerize the kids with their stories, that they can think of nothing else but getting the book to read and treasure the story over and over again?

THANK YOU ELLEN LEOU!

Next week we will complete our author inquiry about Niki Daly. While we still have some unanswered questions, we feel we have learned quite a bit about this author and illustrator from South Africa. Unfortunately, our wish to read with Niki Daly during World Read Aloud Day had not been possible since the author was engaged in celebrations in South Africa. But at least he had kindly acknowledged our comments on his blog and then followed up in an email to us. We are still hoping to have another email from him with the answers to our remaining questions.

Source: https://nikidaly.wordpress.com/about/

When I shared one of his latest books last week, The Herd Boy, I was amazed once again, at the high level of interest and curiosity for unknown places and people among our students. Already while reading, students kept signaling me that they had questions: about the setting (a rural area in South Africa) and most of all about the old man in the shiny car who meets the herd boy towards the end of the story. The man in the picture is former South African president Nelson Mandela. Students had so many questions about him - but how can you describe a man of his caliber in just a few sentences? One of my comments usually led to several new questions. I wished I had more time there and then to let students get some books and search our online catalog for answers. I am hoping we will find some time next week, so that students have at least some more information, which they can then follow up independently. It’s wonderful when a book sparks such curiosity and excitement, leading from one inquiry (about an author/illustrator) to another (about a famous former head of state). The power of stories and books!

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/nelson_mandela/