For some reason, when the weather gets cold and the days get short, I always end up heading north for school visits. How cold was it? It was so cold the kids at Taylor Elementary, on the icy shore of Lake Ontario, were blowing bubbles outside to watch them freeze before they hit the ground. True story.

I knew it was going to be a good day when I walked in the door and saw that the school was named for a trombone player. Trombonists – as any trombone player will tell you – are among the finest people on earth. I was clearly in good hands.

One thing people up north understand is how to thrive in these frigid conditions. For example, like bears, we humans can benefit from an extra layer of insulation under our skin during winter. To help develop that layer, we all ate this for dessert. As best I can remember, it was M&M’s (my initials) on a Rice Krispies base with butterscotch and peanut butter. It was awesome, and eating it was like putting on thermal underwear.

My thanks to the gang at Taylor for working so hard to make this visit a success. Everyone was so welcoming, the kids were prepped and raring to go, and the walls were jam packed with terrific artwork. On an icy, January day, it was hard to imagine a place I’d rather be.

Spent the day in Bainbridge yesterday talking to kids and signing books. Mostly signing. Thanks to a generous grant from the Books With Senator Libous program, we smashed my previous one-day record and sold five hundred and ten books. Piled up, they made a stack almost eight feet tall. I signed almost all of them. Later, on the drive home, my arm fell off.     

It was a fun visit, especially since we did the presentation in the Bainbridge Town Hall Theater. They bused the kids over from the elementary school and they filled the seats and a good bit of the balcony. It’s a great space, and I felt a little like I was on vaudeville.

My thanks go out to everyone who helped make this visit possible, including Dolores Nabinger, Cathy Sherrick, David Leib, Bev Fox, and Michelle Shirkey and everyone at Greenlawn.

Here’s some terrific artwork by Ms. Paoletti’s Greenlawn art students:

Hamagrael is one of the closest schools to me, yet it never knew exactly where it was until last Friday. It’s a small, neighborhood school hidden away down a series of side streets. And it has a strange name.

I had always assumed the name was Dutch. (Around Albany, it seems like almost everything has a Dutch name.) But it turns out the story is much stranger: Hamagrael was named to honor the children of the farmer who originally owned the land. It’s Harold plus Mary plus Grace plus Ellen (or Eleanor – there was some debate on this point.)

In any case, Hamagrael really rolled out the red carpet, and even the principal, Mr. K., got into the spirit. My thanks to Ellen Eisenbraun, Joan Martelle, Christine Schade, and the librarian, Mrs. Held, for pulling everything together. It was a really fun day.

I leave you with some terrific pirate drawings from the walls of Hamagrael (click to enlarge).

Visited the Discovery Center in Binghamton, NY on Saturday, but didn’t have time to take any pictures. Luckily, this blogger did. Thanks!

Last night I slept in the library. How cool is that?

I’m speaking in the Old Forge, NY, library today, and they have a small apartment upstairs where authors stay and do writing residencies. (An author living in the library – why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?)

I felt a little like Burgess Meredith in the classic Twilight Zone episode, Time Enough at Last. Thankfully, I didn’t break my glasses.

What a difference a week or two can make. Seems like only yesterday I was down in Austin, TX, and the weather was in the 80’s. Today I found myself in Alexandria Bay, NY, just a few short minutes from the Canadian border, and there was snow on the ground.

Even the schools themselves couldn’t have been more different. The district in Texas had thirty elementary schools, some of which had over a thousand kids. The Alexandria Central School district, by contrast, is entirely in one building, K-12, and has about 800 kids total.

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I spent the last week and a half in Round Rock, Texas, just north of Austin, visiting schools. Click below to read the highlights.

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D. H. Robbins Elementary really knows how to make an author feel welcome. In fact, as I left, I scribbled some secret hobo signs on some rocks outside the school to let other authors know.

The school was full of artwork and projects. Check out this replica of the columns, fire, and giant skull from the Isle of Bones in Backbeard: Pirate for Hire. Every kid walked through it to get to morning assembly.

And the kids! You’ve never seen a more motley group in your life. Nothing matched, even their shoes and socks. They claim it was “Dress Up Crazy Like Backbeard” day, but I have my doubts.

At the end of the day, we capped everything off with a pirate tea party, complete with (iced) tea and cucumber sandwiches with exactly the right amount of crust. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard putting the day together, especially Mrs. McNulty and Mrs. Campione!

Last Thursday I spent the day at East Hill Elementary in Canajoharie, and the evening speaking to the Montgomery-Fulton Reading Council. East Hill has a beautiful space for presenting, and I had a great time talking to the kids about writing and illustrating. (One class arrived wearing cardboard pigs on their shoulders!) It was one of those days that just flew by – I blinked, and it was time to go home.

Near the end of the day, one of the students arrived with a pencil. It had my name on it, and the date of the visit. How cool was that?

I was doodling with it today and this came out. I call him East Hillbeard.

Thanks to everyone who worked to put the visit together, especially Jody DeJong and Mary Monk!

Yesterday was the first author visit of the year, and it was right down the street. I had a lot of fun at St. Thomas The Apostle School, and the kids made some terrific artwork. There were pirates everywhere. (Also, pictures of the Pope. It was a very interesting juxtaposition.)

Turns out, in over fifty years this was their first ever author visit. Right out of the gate and they did an awesome job. Well done, St. Thomas! Well done, Lori! The year is off to a great start thanks to you.

Last night I spoke to the Schoharie Reading Council and the president, Jan Peters, was kind enough to bake this amazing Lion’s Share cake for dessert. It was a fun evening with a really, really nice group of people. Unfortunately, they decided to cut the cake into even slices, ensuring that everyone got the same sized piece. I really, really wanted the elephant slice.

Twenty years ago, I worked a summer job in Hancock, NY. One weekend some friends made the drive down from Albany to visit. They raved about an amazing ice cream stand they had discovered en route, one with a magic machine that could make a custom-flavored cone from any ingredient you tossed into it. For years afterward, whenever my wife and I found ourselves in the Binghamton area, we’d make a detour down Rte 8 to visit The Penguin.

I hadn’t been back in twelve years. So imagine my surprise when my GPS just happened to route me past the best ice cream stand on the planet. I didn’t even recognize it at first, and I nearly drove my car off the road when I finally did.

I’m happy to report that The Penguin (now called “The Country Cream”) is still going strong out there on Route 8 near Masonville. The incredible machine is called a “Chus-A-Treat” (click the picture) and it works like this: First, the owners cut up a lot of hard ice cream into slabs. Then, one of these slabs goes into the top of the machine, a few spoonfuls of ingredients go into a chute in the front, a lever is pulled, and out comes a cone’s worth of pure ice cream gold. I had a chocolate with scoops of real peanut butter and slices of banana, then a vanilla with Grape Nuts and fresh pineapple for desert. There are only four known Chus-A-Treat machines still in existence in the world. Believe me, it’s worth a trip.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, my visit to Deposit Elementary. What a great school. You’d be amazed at the things I found there, like a display case full of pirate ships…

Pigs, pigs galore…

And at the end of one hallway, an wall-sized house of bugs called “McElligott Manor”.

But most surprising was a thick binder I was handed near the end of the day. It contained job applications from every one of the fifth graders applying to work on Backbeard’s crew. Each student had a page with their photo (in costume, of course) and another with a complete resume, done in the style of the one on the back of Backbeard: Pirate for Hire. (Eg. Special Skills: Cleaning gator teeth, Cooking cold cereal, Trimming toenails with a cutlass…)

I’d hire each and every one of them. Thanks, Mrs. Hochuli, and thanks to everyone at Deposit for making my last visit of the school year such a special one!

The schedule for my visit to Middleburgh Elementary this week called for a full day, with both day and evening presentations. In between, it had been suggested I might want to try climbing something called Vroman’s Nose. Years ago, I went to school with a kid named Vroman, and I was very curious to see if this was the same nose. Unfortunately, Monday’s sweltering heat put the kibosh on any outdoor activity, so I’ll never know for sure.

Worked out fine, though. I was happy to stay indoors, and the folks at Middleburgh sure did make me feel welcome. This was how the librarian, Mrs. Friedland and Mrs. Rumph greeted me when I first arrived. (Note the pig on the shoulder.)

A large table in the library was covered with this giant pirate map, made entirely of recycled materials by Mr. Miller’s 3rd grade class.

In the Physical Therapy room, Mrs. Coonradt used Backbeard’s pirate map as the inspiration for a pirate-themed activity course.

The reward at the end? Not gold, exactly, but goldfish. Close enough.
There were many more fantastic projects, far too many to list here. One of my favorites used the endpapers from Pirate for Hire to explore the idea of stereotypes. Kids made a list of qualifications for a job (say, “secret agent”) and listed the obvious ones. Then, they went back and amended the list, correcting the stereotypes. Very cool.

The only snag of the day came during the first session when Mr. Burton and Mr. Primeau, clearly shell-shocked from spending a year teaching fifth graders, arrived dressed not as pirates, but as pyrite. Enjoy your summer vacation, gentlemen. You’ve clearly earned it.

It’s been years since I was last at the Albany School of Humanities, and I had forgotten what a beautiful library it is. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s the most impressive school library I’ve ever seen. (Don’t believe me? Click the picture above for a better view) It sits front and center at the entrance to the school, and makes quite an impression on visitors.

Great kids at A.S.H., and I really enjoyed their projects.

One that really caught my eye was a series of inkblot projects. Students created them, then gave them to other students to write about. I really like the idea of collaborating that way.

Thanks to Mrs. Mickel and everyone at A.S.H. for such a fun visit!

Recently, I had the chance to spend an entire week doing a residency at Geyser Rd. Elementary in Saratoga, NY. The theme of the residency was writing and illustrating with technology, and I spent the majority of the time working with the fifth grade classes. (I did, however, get the chance to meet all the other students in the school at least once.)

For tools, we worked with Google Sketchup, ArtRage, and Microsoft Publisher and I was amazed – astounded! – at how quickly these kids picked everything up. (Sketchup is a tool I’ve been using a lot in my own work.) After a brief intro the first morning, they were off and running..

By the final day, I was happy to learn that many of them had already downloaded the free software on their computers at home and were making even cooler stuff.

A residency like this doesn’t happen without the help of a lot of people, and I’d especially like to thank Jim Nair and Lorraine Montgomery for getting the labs ready, Mr. Reilly, Mr. Pollicino, Ms. Demick and especially Mrs. Leal for all her hard work pulling everything together.