Family Caldecott Night at CES

Reading The Book of Mistakes together

It is award season at Castleton Elementary and as par for the course, I have been bitten by the Youth Media Award bug pretty badly!  I've got a second grade Mock Caldecott going strong; a fun and unique Mock Geisel project with one first grade class; Sibert Smackdown in fourth and my sixth year Mock Newbery in fifth. Needless to say my days are full and rewarding but I'd be remiss if I didn't say also exhausting.

And yet, here  it is, after 11:00 pm and I am blogging...

But I can't put it off any longer--We had an amazing evening with families last night!  Mrs. Roe's second graders were invited to the library to read our Caldecott contenders, share their Caldecott scoresheets from their special folders and Skype with one of our illustrators. Oh yeah, and get sated, too, as we had plenty of snacks to go around. Along with ice cream and freeze pops, Mrs. Roe baked cupcakes and I made my famous popcorn.

Everyone shared their the books they love the most with their families.  As you can see, it is quite the variety! We have so many!  Can you spot your favorite?

 

Don't you just want to stare at these pictures all day long?  I do!  Happy parents! Happy Siblings! Happy second graders!  All reading together and in their PJs no less!  

About half way through, we got ready for our Skype with Corinna Luyken, author and illustrator of The Book of Mistakes.  Mrs. Roe went around with index cards to gather questions from kids and parents and then everyone got seated in front of the SmartBoard waiting for our guest to "arrive" or shall I say, "appear."

Corinna was great!  She told us about how she came up with the idea for her book, the actual mistakes that are in the book and shared early sketches of that gorgeous tree.  Her big and beautiful studio is in a separate room in her house. She twirled around and gave us a mini-tour. Corinna likes working with ink and showed us her ink bottle and one of the brushes that she uses.

It was especially fun because Corinna has an eight year old daughter, the same age as the kids in Mrs. Roe's class, so she totally knew how to relate to our second graders. I have a feeling, too, that her daughter is "Quinn." Just sayin'. We have a Quinn in the class AND the book is dedicated to "Quinn." Corinna got a little excited when our Quinn asked her a question.  It might have even been the first one!

We talked about favorite books from 2017 and books Corinna loved when she was little.  She mentioned that it was only 4:15 pm at the time, where she lives in Olympia, Washington.  And that turned into a mini-geography lesson.  I was glad my globe was nearby!

I can't say enough how much I appreciate when book creators take their personal time to meet with us.  Thank you, Corinna!  Who knew that when I read her book to all 410 students at our first Monthly Morning Assembly back in September that we would be Skyping four months later? Just goes to show you how unpredictable and delightful life can be.