(Chelsea Update would like to thank Karen Persello, head of youth/teen services and Edith Donnell, youth/teen librarian at Chelsea District Library for the information in this story and Burrill Strong for the photo on top of the story and the photo gallery at the bottom of the story.)
“How many of you don’t know who I am or why you are here?”
Not the typical way to start out an author presentation, but it got the 4th and 5th graders laughing at David Lubar, South Meadows Elementary School’s visiting author. The laughs were plentiful during Lubar’s six 45-minute workshops during which he talked about writing and drawing.
He called himself “line blind” for his awful cartoons. He was asked how much money does an author make — about 8 cents on the dollar for every book sold, and what it’s like to be the “emperor of the Weenie dynasty.”
Lubar has written several collections of funny, warped and creepy tales that have weenie in the title, including Beware the Ninja Weenies, Attack of the Vampire Weenies, and The Curse of the Campfire Weenies, which are very popular books that have sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies.
Some of Lubar’s writing tips to the students were to: “babble on paper,” write “hooks,” or first sentences that make you want to read the rest of the story, and start a “what if?” file of things that you might wonder about.
One of his own “what if’s” — what if a calculator displayed numbers from the future? This calculator answered questions that you only thought about, such as the scores of upcoming sports games, or the winning lottery numbers for that night. The story has an ending that surprised, and delighted the students.
Lubar was one of three authors invited by the Chelsea District Library to take part in the 5th annual Authors in Chelsea, a two-day celebration of authors and creative writing in the Chelsea schools on March 26-27.
Sue Stauffacher visited North Creek Elementary and Jennifer L. Holm visited Beach Middle School.
This year, the three authors presented writing workshops to 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders – more than 850 students in total. With the support of the Worthington Family Foundation, the Chelsea Education Foundation and the Friends of the Chelsea District Library, participating classrooms and school libraries received over 340 free books, so that students could read the authors’ books ahead of time and be prepared for the workshops.
The goal of Authors in Chelsea is to provide students close contact with award-winning authors to explore the art and craft of writing, while encouraging them to read and appreciate literature.
“Call me Jenni!” author Holm told librarian Edith Donnell as they drove to Beach Middle School on Wednesday morning. The day would begin with a presentation to 80 sixth graders from the school’s Blue team, followed by a writing workshop in the afternoon for a specially selected group of students.
Holm is the Newbery Honor winning author of Turtle in Paradise, which all sixth grade students read in preparation for her visit. Flying in from California the night before, she was jet lagged, but cheerful.
When the students arrived, Holm started not with her award winning titles, but rather with the subject of literary collaboration with her younger brother, Matt Holm titled Babymouse. The students were surprised and interested to hear about how she wrote these comic books, and even participated in a drawing contest to see if they could create their own picture of Babymouse with the Chelsea Bulldog.
Holm was ready to go for the writing workshop in the afternoon, which centered on the students creating their own four panel comic strips. As she walked the students through the steps of comic strip making, she was really showing students how to create instantaneous characterizations, compelling plots, and peppy punchlines.
In normal writing classes, students can get bogged down in the details, but by the end of the class, students were showing off their creations to Holm, and taking extra comic strip pages back to their classrooms to work on more.
To learn more about the three authors who visited Chelsea, please click here.
Please enjoy the photo gallery below.
Credit for this story should be given to Karen Persello, Head of Youth/Teen Services and Edith Donnell, Youth/Teen Librarian at Chelsea District Library.