Saturday, May 7, 2011

TD Book Week : Day 4 and 5 and after....

It's the end of an exciting but exhausting week and I'm back in my little cave in the basement, happy to be home with still shaking with an adrenalin rush!

Thursday, May 5th started extra early as I headed to Yellowquill School in Portage while chatting with Jackie Thornton, wife of the principal, about books and movies and Meg Ryan. Linda Szumilak awaited me with a huge smile and a well set-up gym where I presented to students of grades 7 and 8. With a carrot muffin to tide me along the way, I was driven to Portage Library to meet LaDenna Stanley. After answering the interesting and unusual (do you have an accent and why are you here?) from a bunch of curious fifth and sixth graders, I left for Brandon.

At Robin's Nest this human cargo exchanged hands and the librarian of Brandon Library, Shelley Mortenson, drove me the rest of the way. This was the first time I had an all-adult audience and had a great time sharing lots of information about the process of writing.

And then it was onward to the Greyhound Station to catch the Winnipeg Express back to the hotel. Passed the flooded banks of the river and saw tons of sandbags along the way. Quite a sight.

Friday May 6th

Started with a presentation to over a hundred students of grades 4, 5 and 6 of King Edward School and met with librarian Georgia Wells who was so committed to reading and stocking up the library. The students were all ready to start reading at the end of the presebtation and asked some super questions.

Finally ended TD Book Week with the awesome grades 4, 5 and 6 students of Principal Sparling School. Many had read The Third Eye and were very keen to start with The Silver Anklet as soon as they saw the trailer. It was a thumbs-up all the way and I received great feedback from one of the teachers, Kevin Roberts;

"Here are a few things from my kids... Taken directly off of our feedback wall when we got back to the school.

As a teacher, I was happy that you talked about, how many times it took to write and write and write. I also enjoyed the parts.
Things we liked:
The trailers
The video of you reading the book
She talked about the mythology
She gave out high fives
I liked that at the end of the meeting the people who haven't read the books, all really wanted to read them!
We liked the pictures.
Thank you very much!"

And thank you, Kevin, for this lovely feedback and for making the last of my presentations so special!.

And finally I ended the evening by having dinner with Martha Brooks, her husband Brian and her adorable labradoodle, Myra. She signed two of my favourite books from her repertoire, Mistik Lake and True Confessions of a Heartless Girl.


Students of King Edward School

With Georgia Wells

Students of Principal Sparling.

A fab group of students!

With Martha Brooks, she is even lovelier than her writing!


Some of the gifts I received, including my favourite; fruit and nut chocolate from the students of Queenston School

A pin from the Town of Morris, Manitoba.

What a ride, TD Book week has been and I am so appreciative of having had the opportunity to tour Manitoba. Thank you TD Bank and CCBC!

1 comment:

sleepinl8 said...

Sounds wonderful! I wish you luck on the rest of your book tour! I visited one of your other websites and found that indeed I was familiar with several of your works! When I read the part called "what made you write 'the third eye'" in the About section on your website at http://www.mahtabnarsimhan.com/, I knew I must really get reading some of your works, because you mentioned several series that I am a huge fan of.