Friday we had a book launch thanks to
Melanie Jackson and
Orca Publishing. One of the best parts of being a teacher has been the excitement of having authors visit our school. Living in Vancouver we are fortunately to have many authors who do live here and many who come to visit the city. As an adult I have always been thrilled to get to see an author reading their own words or in the case of an illustrator, talking about their illustrations.
I first got to know Melanie as a result of her volunteering her services to help us with the formatting of a cookbook of BC authors and illustrators that our British Columbia chapter of the International Reading Association put together. It turned out that she worked at the time for the British Columbia School Trustees Association right across the hall from me at the school board. After that she did a couple of workshops for me and became involved in the British Columbia Literacy Council.
She is always generous with her time and books! When I went back to teaching, she became a favorite of my students with The Big Dip and Fast Slide, local mysteries, written for the the Orca Currents series. The Big Dip is based on the favorite wooden roller coaster at our local amusement park, Playland. Fast Slide takes place in a water park resembling our local one, Splashdown, and both these settings are familiar to our students. Melanie has visited our school before but this class of students was hearing her for the first time on Friday.
Her new book, again a Orca Current book (a high interest series for reluctant readers) is about a boy who is performing in a summer circus for young people. His dream is to be a wire walker like Phillipe Petit, who walked between the Twin Towers in New York City. Things become problematic due to a roommate that hates him, a dog his aunt dumps on him, and the disappearance of a valuable necklace.
Prior to Melanie's visit, I briefly introduced the book to students in our three other upper intermediate classes and in my own class, I read the first chapter and students wrote and drew responses about it that we presented to her. I had also given them a bit of background about high wire performers.
It was a fun afternoon with Melanie doing two sessions, each with two of our upper intermediate classes. Students were also buy an autographed copy of the book, just like a real book launch, with a generous portion of the cost being donated back to our school.
I think I have mentioned before how the Orca Current series has been wonderful in my class in the past, enabling students with English as a Second Language or with reading problems to find books they could enjoy and read successfully. Even my best readers enjoy a good simpler read at times.
This year, I am sure that I have students who will one day be professional writers and illustrators, and these author sessions really are an inspiration to them. And there is much talk about boys being reluctant readers but writers like Melanie are able to bridge this gap. I honestly don't have reluctant readers in my class.
