Yesterday I went to the Dorothy Butler Bookshop in Ponsonby to meet James Russell, a New Zealand author of the Dragon Brothers books. He did a reading from his first novel and demonstrated the augmented reality on the maps in his books with his ipad. As we talked I found out he is in the middle of promoting his books and is doing school tours, so I have emailed him about dates for coming to our school.
New Zealand authors are amazing because they are so accessible to schools. Last year I organised for Janet Martin and partner to come in as part of our Book Week. They had puppets and sang songs from their books. I thought they were best suited to the junior school, but surprisingly the seniors enjoyed them too. It just shows the power of a good story and song, and a real life performance.
Last year during the same book week I made an experiential book walk which read Dawn Macmillan's story Colour the Stars. Ash had printed out the story on huge pieces of paper and each page had a station to experience alongside the words.
The heater was to experience the feeling of the colour yellow.
What green feels like.
Bubbles were the stars bursting from the sky.
The stars are as abundant as the grains of sand.
I emailed the pictures of the Book Walk to Dawn McMillan and she said she would love to skype us. I only just got around to organising that meeting this year, so Room 12 were lucky enough to have an interview and book reading from her. She was amazing, and as an ex teacher built fantastic rapport with my students.
We love authors in Aotearoa!
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