My Very First Author Visit

What better day to do my very first author visit than on Dr. Seuss' birthday and on Read Across America?

Now granted, I had an 'in' as I visited my twin daughters first grade classes, but you have to start somewhere.

When I got to school I walked past one of the classes and peeked in the window without my kids seeing me, and they were all wearing red and white striped hats in honor of the Cat in the Hat.  I felt a huge smile across my face, and I suddenly had a craving for green eggs.

I became a little bit nervous.  I shouldn't have been nervous . . . I am a former elementary school teacher, I have 4 kids of my own, and I know most of these kids already.  But here I was, about to publicly share my book for the first time in it's completed format.  I was not reading to my family.  I was not reading to my friends.  I was reading to an audience filled with people that were my target audience when writing the book.  What if it was to be a flop?  I know Dr. Seuss, I needed to get on my way and move some mountains!  I went inside.

What book did I share?  My only published book to date. . .Annie and Me, a book that I published with the help of amazing illustrator, Barb Dragony, and uTales!  Can you believe it?  I did an author visit with an e-book.  Never in a million years did I think that I would be doing that when I started on this writing journey so many years ago.

My children are very fortunate to attend a school that is technologically advanced, and they have SMART  Boards in almost every classroom.  For those of you not familiar with a SMART Board, it looks like a dry erase board, but it requires special pens for writing. It also can be connected to a computer and whatever is on your computer screen can be projected onto the board.  It has a sound system, and you can even touch the board as if it were a touch pad on your computer.  We projected the story onto the SMART Board, the classes sat on the floor, and I shared with them.

The children loved the animations, loved the illustrations, and loved the sounds.  Teachers and children alike were asking wonderful questions about the book writing process in general, but also about the specifics of digital publishing, and uTales.  They were amazed that this is how they could read a book, and they wanted to know how they could get the app at home.

One little boy asked how I was able to get the book into the computer.  Fortunately, I have another book that is in the editing process on uTales right now, and I was able to give the class a sneak peak as to how it works.  I showed them how to enter the text, and how the illustrator uploads the images.  They enjoyed seeing some images still in sketch form, and some in full color.  I think that they don't always realized that a book doesn't start out looking like it does when you check it out at the library.

Before I even had my coat on to leave, the first graders were lined up in front of their teacher as she wrote down the uTales website on sticky notes for each one of them.  I could see her wheels turning as she was figuring out ways to make use of this technology in teaching reading in her classroom.  One of the teaching assistants was so fascinated by the whole process that she said she would recommend that I come to other classes in the school at all grade levels (school is K-8).  Wouldn't it be great if we could inspire even just one child who has an interest in writing?

Thank you uTales for helping me to achieve my dream of being a children's author.

Thank you Dr. Seuss for inspiring so many authors, illustrators, and especially children.  We are all thrilled to have celebrated your 108th birthday with you today as we Read Across America.