My visit to Hodgkins Elementary (outside Chicago) was short, but sweet. I flew in late Tuesday, flew out late Wednesday. But in between we got a lot done.

It takes a lot of work to bring in an author for an author visit, and I have a great deal of gratitude and respect for the schools that make it happen. There are so many details to attend to, and so many people who help out along the way in various ways.

Here’s one I had never run into before: to help fund this visit, Hodgkins Elementary received some financial support from the local police department. That in itself isn’t so unusual, but the way the Hodgkins police department raises money is. They hold an event called “Cop on Top” in which – and I’m not making this up – police officers take turns standing on the roof of the local Dunkin’ Donuts. The idea that someone took a shift atop the donut shop to help fund my trip to the school fills me with a whole new level of respect for law enforcement. Much appreciated.

Hodgkins is clearly a school that reads, and evidence was all over the place. Posters, dioramas, and a population of kids who were engaged and focused made the day fly by in a blink. Thanks Jacquie Crowley for getting the ball rolling, Leesa McHugh for organizing lunch, and especially to Joan Milsap who did pretty much everything else. You rock, Joan!

Some Hodgkins artwork…

I must have driven past Eagle Point Elementary hundreds of times in my life, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it was there. Too bad, because it’s quite a school. Check out this Backbeard-inspired artwork:

It’s an old building, but a few years ago they renovated it and turned the old gym into a library. It’s a really beautiful space, tall and full of light. It was a pleasure presenting there.

One of my favorite parts of the visit was when one class presented me with a set of drawings they had done, trying to guess what I was going to look like. Here’s me with my alter ego, Backbeard:

Me as hairy-face no-legs rainbow flying-man:

And even a picture of my wife!

It was one of those days that just flew by, and the evening talk with the parents was the icing on the cake. Thanks to everyone at Eagle Point – Mrs. Fusco, Mrs. Wiley, Mrs. Cronin, and Ms. Salvaggio – and all the kids and parents for making it such a special day.

Just before I was about to start my first presentation at Cicero Elementary, I was informed that the students had prepared something special. Music started playing and about a hundred kids in the gym stood up and sang me a song about how to talk like a pirate. That doesn’t happen every day. In fact, I don’t think it has ever happened. It was fantastic.

They really do like their pirates at Cicero. Walking down the halls I found pirate maps…

A giant pirate ship sailing down a sea of individually crafted Backbeards…

…flying a pirate sail made from the Absolutely Not ink blots project. Great idea!

Pirates don’t say thank you, but if they did, I would thank everyone at Cicero in proper pirate song. Blimey, it was fun!

When I arrived at Homer Elementary in Homer, NY, the last thing I expected was to have my mind blown, but blown it was.

Sometimes, to welcome an author, a class will create pirate hats, or other costumes etc. and wear them to the presentation. I love it, and it never fails to crack me up. But the kids at Homer took this to a whole new level, all 350 of them.

About 200 were in bug masks, the other 150 in pirate hats and regalia. The picture above is only half the group, as there was no way I could fit everyone in one shot. I’m sure I’m going to be having dreams about the school full of kid-sized bugs for some time to come.

Plus, there was this amazing pirate ship in the display case as I walked in…

If you look close, you see that every single pirate on the ship is one of the students in the school. 350 portraits in boats, on the sails, and climbing the rigging. Just amazing.

What a great visit. In addition to the students and the librarian, Mrs. Little, there are many people to thank for putting this all together: Corky Wrisley, Doris Roos, Beth Mercer, Vicki Rolfe, Traci Esposito and Patricial Petrella. It was an astounding amount of work, and I am in awe.

Back to the Syracuse area this week, where people know better than to get too excited about the end of winter.

I visited Woodland Elementary and Pine Grove Middle School over two days, where spirits were good despite the weather. At Woodland I met some big pirates…

and ate a heavy cake. It was very heavy. At Jane Tretler, the librarian’s insistence, I picked it up. Serious cake. Wow, was it good. Let it be known that Mrs. Hill can really bake.

I really enjoyed the days I spent with these kids, and it was a special treat for me because I don’t often get the chance to speak to Middle School. It’s a completely different vibe, even though the students are just a year or two older.

Thanks to Mrs. Kowalski, Mrs. Tretler, and everyone who worked to put the visit together. It was a pleasure from beginning to end.

On my way out, I passed this sign in the Pine Grove library. I like the policy: you don’t have to throw your gum away, just store it in the wastebasket until you’re ready to leave. As a former custodian, that works for me.

Today I visited Mary E. Dardess Elementary in Chatham, NY, a small town in Columbia County.

We had a great time, and the kids were really into it. In the weeks leading up to the visit, they came up with some really creative solutions to the common objects project from Absolutely Not, including a giraffe…

a scissor-dog (?)…

and Penny Penglton the Peacock.

Thanks to everyone at M.E.D., and especially Ann and Mimi for taking such good care of me today. (Mimi, the macaroons rocked!)

Just got back from a week of visiting schools in Cortland, NY, about halfway between Binghamton and Syracuse. For this visit, I finally broke down and bought a GPS navigator for my car, a Navigon 2100. It was a little over a hundred bucks at Staples, and my only regret is that I didn’t buy one sooner. Finding my way from school to school, back to the hotel, then home again was as simple as pressing a couple buttons. Highly recommended.

It was a really fun week in Cortland, although, as any native upstate New Yorker will tell you, this is not our most beautiful season. New York is molting, getting ready for its spring coat, and we all have to take it on faith that this will pass. Luckily, the schools in Cortland did a grand job of brightening the day. I had the chance to visit five schools over the week, Virgil, Smith, Barry, Parker and Randall Elementary. Here are a couple of the highlights:

At Barry, a teacher showed up with a salamander she had discovered earlier that day in a warehouse in town. It was much bigger than anything I’ve ever seen running around wild.

A couple years ago, when Abolutely Not was launched, Walker published an activity guide to accompany it and a number of other books. Included was a recipe for a “Moldy Dog Snack” based on an illustration from the book. I’ve had it posted on my site for years, but I’ve never had the courage to make it. At Parker a couple girls cooked up a batch for my visit, and it was delicious. Licorice, pretzels, cream cheese – who would have guessed?

Here’s a pirate flag from Parker. I love the caption, which reads, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.”

Here are some fantastic pirate designs from the kids at F. E. Smith Elementary:

At Randall, the kids did a really interesting project (complete with an introductory letter to Backbeard) where they researched the ocean for pirate pets, then hid them on secret islands on a giant map.

My thanks to everyone at the Cortland schools, and especially the librarians and students, for making me feel so welcome on my visit. I’ll come back any time, even in rainy, snowy, gloomy March. That’s how much I enjoyed it.

Last week I spent the day at Miller Hill and Sand Lake Elementary Schools. It was a great visit, and it’s clear that the teachers and the parents are very enthusiastic about reading in Averill Park.

About halfway through the day, the librarian, Jeanne Seel, was walking me through the school when we came upon a pair of very unusual doors at the top of the stairs. They look like all the rest, but they’re exactly half as tall. What are they for? Where do they go? Everyone I spoke to professed ignorance, although there was some speculation leprechauns were involved.

Frankly, I don’t buy it. It looks to me like there are classrooms or offices back there, and that adult-sized people are decidedly not welcome. These doors were built to keep grown-ups out. This, of course, can only lead to one conclusion: the kids are actually running the school. No wonder the teachers didn’t want to talk about it.

(But from what I saw last week, they are doing an excellent job.)

You are traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s a signpost up ahead: your next stop: Newnan, Georgia. Our story begins with a montage of a scenic southern town. We see locals eating at the Redneck Café, kids playing football outside the local high school (Lewis Grizzard’s alma mater), and finally come to rest at the Heritage School. It’s a pretty campus, but the community within harbors a dark secret. Everyone is talented. Everyone. There’s the jazz musician, the illustrators and painters, the political cartoonist, the writer who’s daughter just became creative director at a major network. It’s humbling indeed.

But you know what’s even more humbling? When you give a bunch of high school design students a couple hours to come up with cover designs for one of your books, and their designs turn out better than the ones you spent a month on. I’m never doing that project again.

But in spite of everything, it was a fine trip. I ate home-made grits and biscuits and got a chance to hang out with some really cool students. My sincere thanks to all the kind folks at the Heritage School for showing me the true meaning of southern hospitality.

As a rule of thumb, scheduling an author visit in Syracuse in January is a bad idea. Thankfully, my visit to Walberta Park Primary School bucked the odds, and the weather was great. So were the kids. Thanks to everyone at Walberta, and (especially Becky Murphy and the PTO) for a great visit!

My visit to Pieter B. Coeymans Elementary today was a little disorienting. It’s the sister school to A. W. Becker, which I visited last year, but it was built as a mirror image. Where Becker goes left, Pieter B. goes right. Even the bathrooms are reversed, which (as one traveling faculty member informed me) can lead to some awkward mixups.

It was great fun. I got to meet an ocean of junior pirates…

see some terrific artwork…

…and even enjoy some Backbeard pirate cake for desert.

A rip-roaring good time all day long. Thanks to Mrs. Doggette and all the volunteers for all their hard work. Outstanding!

Every year, the good people at Williamstown Elementary in Williamstown, Massachusetts put on a week-long festival called “Words Are Wonderful“. This week, I was privileged to be the third and final visiting author of the week (after Trinka Hakes Noble and Candice Ransom) and I had a terrific time speaking to the fifth and sixth grades.

Williamstown is a fascinating school. It was built about five years ago and designed from the ground up to be a “green” school, energy-efficient from top to bottom. In fact, you can even visit their site and see an up-to-the-minute display of their energy consumption. (I just checked, and the solar panels are currently generating 4.6 kilowatts, or about 46 hundred-watt bulb’s worth of power.) It’s not uncommon for the school to generate more power than it uses, and they re-sell the extra back to the utilities.

One of the nicest parts of what turned out to be a terrific visit was the great artwork produced by the students. The younger kids did some Absolutely Not ink blot illusions, and the sixth graders made some of the best Backbeard pirate collages I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Jessica Dils and everyone at Williamstown for all your great work!