On Wednesday, September 30th, Turning the Page hosted its first of a series of Family Room Presents workshops featuring award-winning children’s book author and illustrator duo, Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann. The Family Room was created in order to continue to engage families and maintain strong parent and family communities despite the challenges of COVID-19 and a remote education. In our new Candace and Eric series “The Spectacular Tentacular Word and Picture Play Hour,” Turning the Page continues to engage both students and their parents by exploring the writing and illustrating process and inspiring them to create their own stories.
Building Home Libraries
Prior to the virtual workshop, Turning the Page distributed new books to our families in both DC and Chicago. Each family received a personalized package of books based on their children’s interest and needs. Each book pack also contained a copy of Candace and Eric’s Oh, No!, the book to be featured in The Family Room event. While reading the book was not necessary for workshop attendance, it allowed families to get to know Candace and Eric’s work prior to the event.
At book distribution, Turning the Page staff was excited to have another chance to re-connect with the North Lawndale and Ward 8 communities safely in person. We greeted familiar faces while also welcoming many new families to our programming for the 20/21 school year. Parents were delighted to receive new books to continue to build and expand their own at home libraries.
The Family Room
On September 30th, Candace and Eric welcomed several families to their digital workshop on Zoom. The duo introduced themselves and shared all about their inspiration and process for creating Oh, No! After taking time to read the book aloud, the two explained their secret formula for writing great stories.
The families in our workshops then had the chance to put their new writing skills to the test by creating their own collaborative story with Candace while Eric provided live illustrations. Students wrote a spectacular story about Bob Mya, a five legged unicorn who had to escape from an evil crystal monster! Both parents and children enjoyed getting their creative juices flowing while having the opportunity to learn from and work with an author and illustrator.
The workshop ended with a Q&A session where Candace and Eric detailed their passion for storytelling. The duo left us wanting more by sharing that their next workshop will be all about learning to draw and reminded families to bring some paper and pencils! The next workshop in the series will take place on October 27th. Turning the Page is excited for even more families to join us in The Family Room with Candace and Eric and to continue to explore the power of storytelling.
Interested in supporting The Family Room events? Here are three ways you can help: order a grab-bag of #CuratedByCarpeLibrum books, now delivering nationwide; purchase a gift card to use at a future Carpe Librum pop-up or store; make a donation through our website.