Remember how I told you that this last week was CRAZY BUSY and full of great opportunities?!  Here’s another: we had an amazing author (who is from MO, which we love!) visit us on Wednesday–Lisa Campbell Ernst!

This was extra exciting for me, because she was the featured author the first year I was at Robinson.  As a new teacher, I was unfamiliar with her work, but because of that visit (and since then), I’ve become a big fan! She’s had a special author box in our class library for years now, too.  She’s one of my favorites. 🙂

So when I heard she was coming, I was over the moon!  My kids hadn’t really heard of her yet, so Mrs. Meihaus (our FABULOUS librarian) helped us get to know her a little better with a short bio lesson, and by finding us piles and piles of her books to read (she’s published over 30!).  We particularly enjoyed:

We loved this twist on the original!

This is the first L.C.E. book I ever heard and is now one of my all-time favorite books! 5th graders love it, too!

Another twist on a beloved fairytale: what would happen if Goldilocks came back to the scene of the crime, 50 years later?

This one is nominated for the MO Show-Me Reader Award (which primary students vote for), but big kids love it, too! While they weren’t intentional, we saw many connections to Disney’s Up.

We were ready for her, and February 27th was the big day–the big day that almost didn’t happen because of a blizzard in Kansas City the day before.  Luckily she made it here and was ready to present to us!

See that fox? It’s the villain from The Gingerbread Girl and she was showing us how to draw him! She even made one for our school to keep! It’s on display by the library now. 🙂

Some of the best parts were the stories she told about how she decides on the ideas for her books.

Pictures of actual candy to help with drawing the Gingerbread Girl’s candy body

And drawing a Gingerbread Girl is harder than you think!

We really enjoyed listening to hear talk about her process as a writer.  She showed pictures of her studio, too, which was also loved (and wanted to actually see the inside of in person!).  There was a lot of time left at the end for questions, and many of ours were answered.  Most wanted to know where she gets her ideas, how long it takes to write a book and how she got started as an author (and answer is that she used to be a graphic designer, which led her to illustrations, which led her to writing–something she’d loved doing since she was a little girl!).

Once the presentation was over, and everyone else left, we found ourselves the last ones in the library and could not pass up a photo opportunity!

Say cheese!

And I couldn’t either, when we ate lunch together later that day:

Gotta love being in the same room with a mentor author that you love! What great a conversation I got to share! It’s amazing how much you can learn in 20 minutes!

Oh, and one more thing I couldn’t pass up was asking Lisa if she’d be willing to Skype with us for World Read Aloud Day tomorrow–which she was willing to do!  We’re excited to continue our conversation tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll be sure to share soon!