Welcome! Be a brainy read it/write it/think it explorer! I have discovered that finding models for learning new things is very important. Art students practice techniques of famous artists. Music students watch and listen to musicians. Writers discover their own process by reading and studying the lives and works of authors.
My third grade teacher read Misty of Chincoteague to our class. I was intrigued and read it and other books by Marguerite Henry (1902–1997). Henry was often home sick as a child but loved reading and animals. As an adult, she wrote more than fifty books, including King of the Wind and Justin Morgan Had a Horse. I visited her in her home when I was at a 1993 conference in San Diego, California. She showed me the room where she wrote each day surrounded by bronze horse statues, piles of magazines, and pictures of horses. Henry autographed two books for me when I left. As an author explorer, I heard children’s book writer John Erickson (Hank the Cowdog) and poet Jack Prelutsky (Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem) at local book events. I visit author websites, too. What fantastic reading and writing connections!
Perhaps you can attend programs at local libraries, festivals, and book stores to meet your favorite authors. Online resources include: Children’s Book Council Kid Lit Events
www.cbcbooks.org/events/ and American Library Association/Conferences and Events
www.ala.org. Maybe I’ll see you in a line to talk with the authors!
