While parents were dazzled by the star-studded film fest this week, local students were treated to the chance to schmooze with the authors and illustrators responsible for bringing some of their favorite characters to life, at the 35th Annual Author-Go-Round, sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Education Office.
“This annual event pays tribute to the reading and writing of children’s literature,” said County Superintendent of Schools William J. Cirone.
“The students come away with a sense that they have been involved with a real literary happening,” Cirone said.
Upper elementary and junior high students from all over Santa Barbara County, including the Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito and Hope District elementary schools, Santa Barbara Junior High and Goleta Valley Junior High, met in small groups each day with authors and illustrators Bruce Hale (Moki the Gecko picture books and the Chet Gecko mystery series for older readers), Valerie Hobbs (Carolina Crow Girl and (How far Would you Have Gotten if I Hadn’t Called you Back? ), Wendelin Van Draanen (Sammy Keyes mysteries and the Shredderman series) and Lee Wardlaw ((101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher and (My Life as a Weirdo).
In addition to reading aloud and discussing their books with the students, the authors shared fun tidbits. For example, Van Draanen, an Edgar Allan Poe Award winner for Best Children’s Mystery, said that her character Sammy Keyes is the friend she wished she had growing up, and thinks they would have gotten along great together.
Wardlaw shared that she thinks the BEST things about writing are working at home, seeing her books in bookstores, creating people she’d like to meet in real life, and getting fan mail, while the WORST things about writing are getting bad reviews, not having anybody to talk to during the day (except for cats), and waiting two-three years from the time her book is bought by a publisher to when it is actually published.
Almost 700 students participated in the Author-Go-Round this year.