I had such a lovely time in the CyFair school district this past week. The students were prepared and engaged, some asking me questions that really kept me on my toes! Each day, the hosting librarian complimented me on my presentations, sharing how much the kids got out of them. The honest truth is that my presentations were successful (ie, kids connected with them) because of the hard work of those wonderful librarians, and their teacher colleagues. My visit doesn’t mean much without the prep: introducing my books to the kids, providing context for the historical fiction, and overall generating excitement. 

A Texas-sized shout-out and thank you to Carla Wilkerson (Millsap Elementary), Joyce Boin (Sheridan Elementary), Melissa Anthony (Adam Elementary), Theresa Rogalski (Postma Elementary) and Angie Arnett (Swenke Elementary) for making me look so good all week. 

Here I am with a gaggle of great readers at Adam Elementary:

Here we are celebrating the inimitable Barbara O’Connor’s birthday:

And celebrating with old friends:

Nobody does Veteran’s Day assemblies like the CyFair school district! I was at Swenke for their Veteran’s Day celebration, sniffling my way through each grade level’s beautiful gifts of song (luckily, I’d attended a Veteran’s Day assembly at Hamilton Elementary last year so knew to bring tissues!) and joining in the applause for the 100 or so veterans who came to the school. I especially enjoyed my post-assembly conversation with this 95-year-old WWII vet, a survivor of the sinking of the USS Lexington in the Coral Sea.

Do I have the best job in the world, or what??