Over the past few weeks in Chicago, Turning the Page hosted numerous authors at our partner schools for this semester’s Author Visits. At LEARN Charter (Romano-Butler campus), we hosted Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Award winner and former LEARN teacher Jen Cullerton-Johnson, who presented her book Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace with our families and discussed the importance of taking care of our environment and “planting” our dreams.
At Legacy Charter, 2012 Herman W. Block and the 2013 Jane Resh Thomas Prize winner Miriam Busch and award winning illustrator Larry Day shared their book Lion, Lion with our families and also, read their soon-to-be released book, Raisin: The Littlest Cow. Afterwards, Busch and Day walked families through the processing of writing and illustrating a story.
Accomplished screenwriter, author, and professor John Madormo visited with families at Kellman Elementary and introduced them to his series, Charlie Collier: Snoop for Hire and discussed his journey of becoming a writer while testing their cleverness with some mysterious brain teasers! And at Sumner Elementary, Chicago native Lisa Maggiore who presented her book, Ava the Monster Slayer: A Warrior with Glasses and discussed with our families, the need for diversity in books, the process of finding inspiration to write a story, and her journey to becoming an author.
Here are some of the memorable moments from our parents:
“Their [Busch and Day] spirit and their reading of their unreleased book, Raisins.” – Legacy Parent, 2016
“Seeing Madormo challenge the children with the brain teasers and seeing their brains work.” – Kellman, 2016
“Learning about the life of Kenyan heroine, Wangari Maathai, who lived during my lifetime.” – LEARN Parent, 2016
“[Maggiore] reading to our children and letting them know that writing books are things that are possible for them to do.” – Sumner Parent, 2016