Everything but Kwame...

Happy Birthday BOOKED!

Pre-Party 

The incomparable volunteer, Mrs. Warland, baked 80 red velvet cupcakes,
cut out the soccer balls and put them on each cupcake!

Then she spelled out BOOKED!

Before the party even started, I took a few #BookedAllStars and #BookedSoccer photos:

She couldn't come to the party but she dressed the part anyway!

Let's Get This Party Started!

This afternoon about 60 kids showed up for the birthday party for Kwame's new book, Booked. We had a blast celebrating the past two days at school wearing our Converse. Today we even threw some soccer shirts in the mix.

I'd call that a good crowd for a book birthday!

First we listened to Kwame's interview that was on NPR on Sunday and kids followed along in their books.  

Nearly half of them purchased a book ahead of time.  I even had one young man come with three crumpled five dollar bills hoping to snag one if I had extras.  Lucky for him, I did!  This is the same boy that worked tirelessly last year to create our documentary on the road leading to Kwame's visit to CES in May.  He called it "The Kwame Project."  

I also shared this video that the 2015 Newbery Committee put together.  It was great because I had some of "my" 2015 Newbery Committee members come to the party!  We will forever be bonded.

Books You Find on Google

What's a birthday party without singing?  So we sang!

Finally a picture with feet so you can check out the #BookedAllStars !

Double Messi!

While some kids were on line for the food, others came up and wrote reasons they love poetry.  Imagine this--they like it!  I also handed out some pages from Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library and Honey to try out Blocked Poetry but we ran out of time.  I'm hoping someone worked on it tonight and brings it in to share tomorrow.

Overall, great party! Thanks to Mrs. Warland for everything. Mia from the Castleton Public Library for her help, the teachers from CES and the MS for helping out.  Mrs. Hoffman from the Teacher Center for the popular M&Ms and pretzels. The only thing missing was...KWAME.  But he was certainly there in spirit.

So from all of us in Schodack, we wish Booked a very happy, happy book birthday!

When I got home, I had my cupcake.  But I couldn't help snap a selfie of my own converse with the book.  The top one my #BookedAllStars are in focus and the bottom one has the book in focus.

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Just in case you want more, here's The Crossover video the kids did last year: