Learn how to apply the six traits of writing
from an author who uses them everyday.

What does a book look like before it's a book? It's an idea on a piece of scratch paper, it's a typed manuscript going off to an editor, it's a computer image with art and words, it's an F&G that falls apart when you read it, until one day...it's a book that you can hold in your hand and share with a friend.

For the How a Book Is Made program, I read my picture book poems Red Light, Green Light, Subway and Raise the Roof as a call-and-response, a choral reading by the entire group.

After the readings, I "show and tell" the stages of how a book is made as we pretend to make a book ourselves. The students will act out each stage as we go through the six traits of writing in the manuscript drafts. Then we will act out the creation of the art with pencil sketches, color sketches, a press sheet, mechanicals and an F&G (folded and gathered) until we have made a finished book. After the show and tell, we have questions and answers.

I will sign books during lunch and at the end of the day.

This presentation works best for grades PreK-2.
I also present it to mixed age groups in a school or library setting.