TO BE AN AUTHOR

BRINGING A WRITER, POET, OR ILLUSTRATOR TO YOUR SCHOOL

"Children read less and less ; they lost interest in books" has become such an evidence that it almost turned into a common place. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey underlined that 15-year-old students’ achievement in reading literacy is very low; most students cannot even explain by their own words what they just read!

Some ways exist, though, to inspire children and bring reading to life, and one of them is inviting an author or an illustrator to school. Such an event is in itself a first step towards that goal. Children are always excited when meeting an author or illustrator!

After my own experience, here are some tips to help planning your event.

Find your writer (or illustrator): this is the first step.

Goal of your event:

• Would you like your author to read a short story or excerpts of one of her/his books?
• Would you like to use one of the author’s books for a classroom project and bring the author to school at a later date?
• In the case of an illustrator, would you like him/her to come and show his/her works, or to run a workshop?

Preparation a few days before the event:

• Make sure your author/illustrator has all the practical information she/he needs: school address and location, transport information (in case your author/illustrator does not have her/his own transportation), contact details, start/finish times
• Make sure you have your author’s books in the school library. Prepare your pupils. Read and discuss about your writer’s book(s) or your illustrator’s drawing style. Invite your pupils to design posters or book covers for display on the walls, starting at the school main entrance and ending at the classroom door
• You may wish to organize books for children to buy and have signed on the day, at the end of the visit. Ask your author where you may get them, and place them on a table for this purpose. You’ll have to consider a little time for book signing, too
• Should you be in good terms with the local newspapers and radio channels, ask them to issue a news/article about your author’s or illustrator’s visit to your school. This will be a nice way to give your author/illustrator some more visibility

On the day:

• Be available to show your writer/illustrator around, and introduce him/her to your school colleagues. Should your writer/illustrator arrive a little bit in advance, offer a cup of tea or coffee
• If your visitor is a female author/illustrator, children could offer her a little flower bouquet or a small plant in a pot. Personally speaking, I prefer a small plant in a pot; I don’t like flowers to be cut. Any plant is a living being, and when cutting it we just shorten up its life. A flower in a pot will live longer… not only as a flower but also in our souvenirs. Anyone has his/her own likes and dislikes, though, so try to get some information on your guest’s preferences earlier than buying your present. If your visitor is a man, most probably a box of chocolate will please him, but there too get some discreet information

After the event:

• Follow up with the class. Talk with your pupils about the visit and what they enjoyed most. You may also write individual or class letters to thank your writer/illustrator. Follow up with a classroom work based on the story or book that was the object of the visit. In my case, I always prepare worksheets for all my short stories and books, and I’m very happy that teachers use them for a classroom work. And any time I publish a short story on my children’s website www.barry4kids.net, I also make available the respective worksheets and other activities on the related theme
• Share your experience with your colleagues and think about what you might do differently next time. Prepare a short summary to send to parents
• Should this event have been a successful experience that you’d like to repeat, make a thank-you note to your author/illustrator in the local newspaper, i.e. the one that gave the news about the event in the first place

Always speaking from my own experience regarding ways to inspire children and bring reading to life, I’d also like to mention children's plays, and I invite you to read what I wrote about this subject on the respective page, as well as the FAQs. Feel free to contact me through the form on my welcome or activity page.

Posted by Dulce Rodrigues

Once Upon a Time...

...there was a young girl who loved books. Books are source and joy, fun and knowledge.

She was very often ill, and family and friends would bring her books when visiting. And the more she read, the more she loved reading. As for everything else, the more you know something, the more you want to know about it. With reading it’s the same.

And her imagination flourished with stories that would take her to other worlds; with stories she would tell to other children like her.

As the young girl grew older, life changed gradually and she no longer had time to tell stories, but they still popped up in her head and she kept them in a secret place in her memory until a time when... Is it not said that old people become children a second time?.

And the once young girl had again all the time in the world to tell stories to young children! And stories happily came back from their forced exile and enjoyed filling in pages and pages of books.

You might have guessed. I was the young girl.

I hope children of all ages will enjoy my stories as much as I love writing them.

Posted by Dulce Rodrigues

WRITING FOR CHILDREN
A new life after retirement

These few lines address all future-to-be retired persons. It gives them the assurance that there is a life after retirement, sometimes much more fulfilling and exciting than when still professionally active.

Personally I believe that the rule for an agreeable and rewarding “career” after retirement assumes three main principles: do what you like, as you like, and whenever you like! And this is more than true when during your active life you had – for some reason that is not called for here – to execute one or more jobs that were in no case satisfactory to your academic qualifications or to your intellectual expectations.

Already in my childhood I enjoyed telling stories to other children like me. Later, at high school, I nevertheless preferred written tests to oral examinations, and I remember that I once wrote a novel for the History course that pleased the teacher so much that she asked me to leave the manuscript at the high school library. Choosing a first university course in Languages and Literatures was not only a judicious choice but also a pleasant break in my routine professional life. Curiously too, even the Science Foundation course I took when entering the university campus for the second time (this time with an English university) offered to me the possibility of giving full expression to my inclination towards writing and foreign languages. Turning this passion into a full-time “job” after retirement was just at a fingertip click on my computer…

Knowledge is to be shared, otherwise it becomes useless. And since I’m very concerned about children and young people and their access to reading and education in general, writing for them appeared to me as a most natural direction to take.

I count on family and friends to pass the word around, but I also count on you. Yes, You, dear reader! Remember my books are for “children of all ages”! And no matter how old you are, do not kill the child who sleeps inside you. As the great Portuguese poet António Gedeão would sing:

Posted by Dulce Rodrigues

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