Eric Wight Author Visit!

Last year, our elementary school paired with a few other schools around town to bring Kevin O'Malley to our campus to chat, perform, inspire, and just be a little silly with our students!  :)  THIS year, we were blessed to have another author visit from the chapter book author and illustrator, Eric Wight.  For those of you unfamiliar, he is the creator of the "Frankie Pickle" series. 

School Library Journal describes his first book: "Franklin Lorenzo Piccolini is a fourth grader with a big imagination and an alter ego named Frankie Pickle, an amalgam of pop-culture icons from Indiana Jones to Batman. His messy room spawns an adventure that ends when the filth is too much even for him. Wight matches a silly story to black-and-white cartoon graphics in a chapter-book format. Readers who have graduated from Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta series (both Scholastic) will be charmed by this longer story." –Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC

Well, not only does the main character in Eric Wight's chapter book series have a huge imagination filled with creativity, but the author himself most certainly does, too!  In our hour long, grade level presentation, Mr. Wight not only told the students about himself and his life, but he also truly inspired the students to write themselves by sharing his experiences and his writing styles and techniques!  He made it seem SO very fun and effortless, that we all left with a new story frame/outline to help us create our own, new story, but also with a new outlook on writing for most of my kiddos! 

The new story idea, you ask?  Well, it's none other than "Frankie the Hilarious Hippo"! 

Just like Kevin O'Malley, Eric Wight used the students' ideas to come up with this new, outrageous story line/knock-off of Frankie.  Our class was so proud to help focus the new character around none other than a hippo (our class "mascot")!  Who knows, after all his fun and kooky stories, maybe Frankie as a hippo could be next?!  I mean, it's not too far off from some of his other tales...

Anyways, of course, after hour of fun inspiration, we just HAD to pose with our newest favorite author!

So, 2 visits in 2 years...LOVE it!  How about you?  Do you have author visits?  If so, who have you seen in person?  I'd love to hear about it!  :)