Visiting Author Day – How to Meet with Success

When my school first joined the Visiting Author CoSer in 2006 I was excited about the opportunity for the students but also worried about how to go about pulling off a successful and memorable visit. The first thing I did was talk to Donna Katter about it and she gave me names of a couple of other librarians who had been having successful visiting author days for years. She suggested that I contact Carin Barwick at Geneseo Elementary and Jill Feine from Batavia John Kennedy to ask for ideas. I did this, and it was a big help. My two biggest suggestions to anyone who is planning a day are to start planning early and to get your faculty and staff involved.

Every year I send out a short memo about four months before the actual visit is to take place asking for volunteers to help with the Visiting Author Committee. Even though I end up doing most of the work it gives the faculty and staff some ownership and it is great to get their ideas and input. We have one meeting right away just to hammer out some ideas for the day and then we don’t meet until a month or so later to see how things are going. During the whole process we may only meet about three times, so there is not a lot of commitment on the part of the other faculty and staff.

We usually try to find a theme for the particular author who is visiting for that year and do one school-wide project that incorporates that theme. For example, when Lisa Campbell Ernst came to visit we took the idea of a quilt from her book Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt and had each student draw a picture of their favorite book that she wrote and illustrated. Then each class picked the favorite picture from their class and that picture was transferred to fabric and stitched into a quilt. One of the squares had her picture on it and when she came to visit she signed it. The quilt is now hanging in the library. When Suzanne Bloom came to visit we took her love of pigs and had a “Prettiest Poker” contest. Every class received a large poster of a pig to decorate however they wanted and the whole school was able to come to the library and vote on their favorite and when Suzanne came to visit she signed it. It is now framed and hanging in the library. We used the same idea with Barbara Palmer. She has a book called A Clue for You: Tail in the Teapot. Each class decorated a poster of a teapot with little teacups around it. Barbara picked her favorite and signed it to be hung in the library. She also picked one to take home to her studio!

As well as these school-wide projects my teachers have been great about doing
classroom projects to decorate the halls to welcome our authors/illustrators. They take this opportunity to incorporate reading and math by doing graphs or researching about the author or comparing and contrasting. It is endless how creative the teachers have become and it always impresses me and the authors when I take them on a tour of the school to see the wonderful work.

There is always the opportunity for students and faculty/staff to purchase the author’s books. Sometimes the author is able to provide the books, which is convenient. If not, I have used Sundance books in Geneseo. They have been very good about getting hardcover and paperback books and will give a nice discount. They also let parents write checks to them instead of you having to take care of that.

The highlight of the day for the adults in my building is the luncheon that we organize. We decided the first year that we wanted it to be a really special day for our author so we hired a caterer to prepare a lunch for us (it is way better than school lunches!). We use a local caterer called Vasile’s which is right in Nunda. Our district has been very generous in chipping in some funds to help pay for it, but any adult who signs up must pay $6.00. There are usually about 40 people who sign up. We have it in the library and it is a really nice atmosphere and a great way for teachers to interact with each other and the author.

I must say, the first year that we had Visiting Author Day I was very anxious and nervous as to whether everything would go well, but every year it gets easier and easier because we have everything in place. We are like a well oiled machine now. The most difficult part of putting the day together now is deciding on a school-wide project!

If anyone would like information or help in organizing your day, I would be more than willing to help you. I have examples of book order forms, memos I send out, newsletter articles, etc. that I would be more than happy to share!