Since the debut of Samurai Shortstop in 2006, Alan has visited hundreds of schools and libraries all over the United States--and one school in Japan!--to talk about his books, the writing process, and more. As a former eighth grade and tenth grade English teacher, he knows how to keep things relevant and entertaining, and, perhaps more importantly, how to out-smart-aleck the smart alecks.
Put Him to Work
School visits may include any combination of the following sessions:
Rounding the Bases
Using examples from all his books and baseball (what else?) as an analogy, Alan explains how his books are made--from inspiration (first base) to outline (second base) to writing (third base) to revision (home).
Recommended audience: grades 3-12
Works well for: small (classroom-sized) or large (auditorium-sized) groups
Requirements: PowerPoint projector and screen
Stealing Shakespeare
Alan stole plots and characters from Hamlet and Macbeth to write his YA murder mysteries Something Rotten and Something Wicked, but Shakespeare himself was an accomplished literary thief. In this talk, Alan discusses Shakespeare's influences and the Bard's impact on generations of later writers.
Recommended audience: grades 8-12
Works well for: small (classroom-sized) or large (auditorium-sized) groups
Requirements: PowerPoint projector and screen
Ten Things Parents and Educators Do to Discourage Reading
Every year, one of the usual suspects is held up as the thing that killed reading: video games, the Internet, mp3 players, television, movies, cell phones and PDAs. But if we're going to compare novels up to these other media, we have to start treating books like the other media, not like scholarly tomes or educational means-to-ends. In this eye-opening talk, Alan discusses ten things parents and educators do--all with the best of intentions!--that discourage kids from picking up books and reading for fun.
Recommended audience: Parent and teacher groups
Works well for: small (classroom-sized) or large (auditorium-sized) groups
Requirements: PowerPoint projector and screen
Q & A
Alan leaves time for questions at the end of every session, but some of his best visits have included entire sessions set aside just for Q & A. No PowerPoint, no prepared speech, just Alan in the front of the room answering every question your kids throw at him--what it's like to have a career as an author, how to get published, where he gets his ideas, the nuts and bolts of the writing process, how he tackles research, and what kind of chances the Tennessee Volunteers have this season. Q&A sessions work best classes that have read at least one of his books and prepared questions ahead of time.
Recommended audience: grades 4-12
Works well for: small (classroom-sized) groups
There are no limits! Alan will do as many presentations as you can pack into a school day. Put him to work during lunch too! He loves having an informal pizza lunch with smaller groups of kids--the baseball team, the creative writing club, the newspaper staff, etc. Once he's at your school, Alan wants to meet as many kids as he can! If you're planning to sell books during the event, don't forget to schedule time for a signing too, before the students have to leave for their buses.
Alan's Needs Are Few
Give him a couple bottles of water, a computer hookup for a PowerPoint presentation, and (in auditoriums) a microphone--and he's good to go. If you buy him a plain cheese pizza or French fries for lunch, he'll be your best friend forever.
School visits work best when the students are familiar with Alan and his work. It just makes sense--when they know the books, they're excited to meet the author. You can download reader guides for most of Alan's books.
Samurai Shortstop Reader Guide
Something Rotten Reader Guide
Something Wicked Reader Guide
The Brooklyn Nine Reader Guide
In addition to reading his books in the classroom, teachers can work with students before the visit to help them come up with questions beyond "How much do you make?" "How old are you?" and "How much do you weigh?" Alan's been asked all those questions and more, and he's happy to answer them (even the ones about how much he makes and how much he weighs) but with a little advance preparation kids will often ask surprising and interesting questions about his research and the writing process, and make the visit far more educational and memorable.
You'll Need Books, Right?
You can arrange pre-event sales of Alan's books through a local bookstore, or you can buy the books yourself directly from Penguin. You'll get a 40% discount off the retail price of the books--so you can either pass that discount on to the kids or sell them at full price and use it as a fundraising opportunity. Click here to read more on ordering books from Penguin, and click here for a printable list of Alan's books with all the info you'll need to place an order.
Cost
$1,000 per day plus travel and hotel.
If that's beyond your school's budget there are a couple of ways to make a visit more affordable. You can partner up with another school (or schools) in your area, booking back-to-back events and sharing the travel expenses. If you and other schools can join forces and schedule Alan for five consecutive days, he'll pay his own travel costs. Each school will only pay for one day's honorarium and one night's lodging.
You can also split a day between two schools if they're close enough together so that getting from one school to another doesn't eat into too much of the day.
This blog post by fellow North Carolina author Adrienne Bashista has a great list of grant resources for funding author visits. Some of them are specifically for NC schools, but most of the list is applicable to schools anywhere in the US.
Alan is also available for online chats via Skype for $100 per hour. Click here to see Alan Skype chat with a class in Japan! And click here for more details about planning a virtual visit.
E-mail Alan to discuss an author visit.
View Alan's upcoming events calendar
Read a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators guide to preparing for an author visit (PDF)
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