Elementary students treated to story time with children’s authors

Children’s author and illustrator Melissa Sweet stood before a room full of rapt 4th-graders at Pershing Elementary School and pointed to a photograph beamed onto the screen behind her.

“Does anyone know what that is?” she asked.

Hands shot into the air. “A typewriter!”

“Wow, that’s great because a lot of people don’t know what a typewriter is anymore!” Sweet said.

The Maine-based author went on to tell the kids plenty of things they didn’t know - about E.B. White, the subject of one of her best-known books; about how she constructs the elaborate collages that fill the pages of her books; and about how she has found the inspiration to research, write and illustrate nearly 100 books during her career.

Sweet was one of five renown children’s authors who individually visited LPS elementary schools on Sept. 28. The other authors were Lauren Castillo, Rebecca Kai Dolitch, Laura Vaccaro Seeger and Christian Robinson. They visited 15 elementary schools, each for about 45 minutes. 

The authors were in the Lincoln area to attend the Plum Creek Children’s Literacy Festival at Concordia University in Seward.

LPS Coordinator of Library Media Services Joy Harvey said the author visits offer students valuable lessons about the work involved with writing and publishing.

“The authors are so honest about how the process of drafting, writing and revising can be messy,” she said, later adding, “Many of the students will be inspired to write and illustrate their own stories now.”