The One and Only Katherine Applegate..

 It all started this past summer, as I was tweeting about recent books I had read: The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate and One for the Murphys, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  The conversation continued as you can see below, and I was thrilled to schedule Katherine Applegate for a visit.

Fast forward to Friday, December 7th, a fantastic day for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at my school,  as they got to meet Katherine Applegate, author of the wonderful book we read for the Global Read Aloud, The One and Only Ivan.

We were so excited to get our autographs!

I think that I was the biggest kid of all! I love authors of great books like Ivan.

Katherine did a wonderful job telling the story of the real Ivan.

I loved the way she invited students to be writers and think like Ivan.

One of my favorite slides: showing the number of crumpled drafts it takes to write something worth sharing!

So many questions to answer!

Hands were flying up everywhere with great questions about what was fact vs. fiction in Ivan.

I am so thrilled that our students had this opportunity to meet an author whose book they adored! Katherine validated the notion that writing is very challenging work and encouraged our young writers to keep working hard on the craft of writing. Thank you, Katherine, for taking your precious time and spending a Friday afternoon with  us!