Come out, come out, wherever you are. Even an author as shy as me knows when it’s time to come out of hiding. By spring of 2021, I was done living in pandemic seclusion. It was time to venture out again and look for ways to market my book, The Bunny Poets. After seeing advice from one of my Facebook groups, Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators: Publishing, Marketing, and Selling, I contacted three elementary school principals at the end of the school year. I wanted to see if any were interested in a free author visit for the following year. West Park Elementary School principal, Katelyn Bennet, wrote back. She was enthusiastic about meeting with me. We arranged an office visit in September after school started.
The day of the meeting I brought my book, business cards, and samples of bookmarks I wanted to hand out to the students. I also prepared a worksheet for teachers to copy if they wanted to work with students on their own poems.
Katelyn and I picked a date, October 17th, for me to read in the library all day. She created an Excel sign-up sheet and emailed it to teachers. Nine teachers signed up!
I read The Bunny Poets to seven groups of students. I had one break and a one-hour lunch. Each session was 20 minutes, ten minutes for reading the book and ten minutes for questions and answers. I was a little nervous about the questions, but most were easy to answer.
Easy questions: What inspired the story? How long did it take to write the book? Which one of the bunnies is brown? (I had to look at the illustrations to remind myself. Percy is brown.)
Hard questions: What is a poem? Did I never think about this? “Hmm…I said, “let me see. Poems are thoughts about how the poet feels about a subject. The words and phrases sometimes rhyme, sometimes not. It’s shorter than telling a story.” Not the best answer, but next time I’ll be more prepared.
According to Storytime Teaching Resources:
“A poem is a piece of writing that uses imaginative words to share ideas, emotions or
a story with the reader. Many poems have words or phrases that sound good together when they are read aloud.”
My favorite question of the day? “What is a whisker kiss?”
My favorite comment? One boy, about eight, with huge dark eyes pressed his hand to his chest and said, “I never met a real author before!”
All in all, a great day. I’m glad I came out of hiding!
Congratulations! Riley must be so proud of her grandmother.
Thanks for the comment, Liz. I corrected the name of my granddaughter. I don’t think you meant to say my granddaughter’s name was Katelyn. That is the name of the West Park school principal.
that last little boys comment, aww, so sweet.
Great job, Barbara!! I’m glad you’re out of hiding too!
Appears that lots of kids got to enjoy BP. Thank you. SFF
So glad you are back in the game. The Bunny Poets is the perfect book to share with young students who are impressionable. Congratulations.
Congratulations on this successful reading experience. I love the principal’s enthusiasm to share writing & authors with her students. You expertly deserved the Royal Reading throne and maybe a crown for the day! I hope other principal’s will also want to encourage their students with your author visit offers!