Imagine a Read Aloud!
Imagine a Night
Got to love the Sevier County Public Library System in Tennessee…they periodically post videos of the librarians reading aloud to kids, as a service to far flung patrons who have difficulty making a trip to the library. I’m honored that they’ve chosen Imagine a Night and Imagine a Place!
Read MoreStorywalk Around the Neighborhood!
Check out these charming readers soaring, waddling, and quacking with the animal characters of Around the Neighborhood. The Springfield-Greene County Library District in Missouri (shout out to my home state!) made this lullaby book into a storywalk. So much fun, plus a great excuse to get outside (and pounce, hop, etc.) on a lovely summer day!
Read MoreFree Books! Free Event Kit! Monkeys Everywhere!
Lita Judge, the illustrator of the picture book, created this charming Little Monkey who can take a ride on a reader’s wrist. Thanks, Lita!
Happy Father’s Day! Here’s a perfect treat for a day celebrating dads: a FREE copy of Quick, Little Monkey and a marvelous monkey event kit for bookstores, libraries, and schools. Couldn’t be better!
The fabulously talented and creative firm Curious City has created a story hour event kit for Quick, Little Monkey. Send readers on a quest throughout your bookshelves to find their very own Little Monkey, one they can carry home just like Papa Monkey carries Little Monkey through the rainforest.
And if this is not enough monkey madness, you can enter to win your very own FREE COPY of this sweet and tender picture book about a Little Monkey and her wise and protective Papa.
Read MoreGet Your Author Out of the Library
I recently visited the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) at their National Convention in Columbus Ohio, which is a far hipper town than you think. For one thing, they have this car driving around downtown! Look closely and you’ll see that, yes, those are Babie doll legs sticking up from the top.
At the AASL, I regaled the librarians with advice gleaned from 10 years of coming to schools as a visiting author. Would you like to hear some of the gems?
1) Convey enthusiasm. Talk about your author visit as if it is going to be a blast, with everybody from students to principal to teachers to custodian. The excitement spreads out from you.
2) Share information. From early on, tell your staff, your teachers, and your students who will be coming, why you chose her, and why she’s cool.
3) Get the books. Buy them, borrow them, steal them if you have to, but make sure each kid reads at least one book.
4) Make your students into hosts. Rather than telling them, “We’re going to do something amazing for you,” tell them, “Something amazing is happening at our school and we need your help.” Recruit them to make displays, greet the author, guide her to the library, write an article about her for the school newsletter–anything that turns them into active participants.
5) Tell your author where to park. Please. I can’t be the only author in the world who finds the layout of schools and their associated parking lots bewildering.
More tips to come later….
Read MoreSarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Readers will treasure the blossoming friendship between opposites in this whimsically illustrated tale. Short chapters and plenty of action make for an accessible and appealing reading experience. . . . Touching and inspiring.”
—Kirkus Reviews