Candace Fleming visit + Giveaway

Candy (Candace) Fleming visited our school yesterday and gave our students an amazing presentation! As I mentioned in an earlier post, we read Fleming's Lowji Discovers America for our One Book, One School program. Candy Fleming talked to the students about how she gets her story ideas in a very amusing and engaging way! I highly recommend her as a speaker.

For the K-2nd graders, she interacted with students about the kinds of tools we use for writing - pencils, erasers, computers, etc...but also explained that our eyes and ears are some of the most important tools! She showed some pictures of her travels to Asia and explained how the different animals she saw gave her "story seeds" for her picture book Oh No!

For the 3rd-5th students, she also talked about using her eyes and ears to get story seeds - pointing out students in the room and how she might be able to use them in a story. One of her ideas for a story came from a trip to the beach with her son. As they ate their boring picnic lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, they saw a group of people having a delicious-looking birthday cake for a seven-year-old down the beach. Suddenly some seagulls swooped down and stole a strawberry and a number seven candle from the top of the cake and flew away with them. Fleming explained that that gave her a story seed for the book Clever Jack Takes the Cake. As she began to write the story, she gathered more seeds. When her younger son said if the book had a princess, it should also have a monster, that idea became another story seed. Another seed sprouted when her older son was offended that her story was going to have a strawberry in it because he is allergic to strawberries! Fleming explained that all those seed swirling around helped her form the story Clever Jack Takes the Cake, a tale about a boy who makes a cake for a princess' birthday, but it ends up getting destroyed bit by bit as he travels to the castle - by blackbirds, an ogre, and even the guard explaining that the princess is allergic to strawberries.

For both groups, Candy talked about writing Lowji Discovers America. A story seed for that book came from a new family that moved into Fleming's neighborhood. They family had come from India and their son had never been to America before. Some of the phrases he said and the things he did, such as watching automatic doors in amazement, gave Candy Fleming ideas for her story.  Fleming also talked about how much research she does for her writing, even her fiction. To write Lowji Discovers America, in addition to learning about Indian culture, she traveled to India for a month. She shared how many drafts she wrote before sending the book to her editor (about 5-6) and showed a picture of the total number of drafts she wrote before it was finished (she didn't know the number but it was probably 12-15).

Her speech was very inspiring. I walked into several classes in the afternoon and they were taking story seeds from the world around them and doing some writing! I had one teacher say her students begged her for more time to continue writing!

I'd like to spread the happiness in a small way and offer a giveaway for a signed copy of Lowji Discovers America! Please comment below with your name and either email address or Twitter handle to enter. Retweet my tweet about the contest for another chance to win. I'll draw a random name on Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 8pm Central.