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I’m in the middle of school visit season, and it bears repeating:

Authors don’t do school visits; schools do author visits.

By the time I arrive, 90% of the work is done. The students are either primed and ready, or not. The magic in not the author, it’s the shared energy and enthusiasm that librarians, teachers, administrators, and school volunteers put into the event. When I walk into a building, I can feel the difference. I can tell how much the school has invested in this moment.

Sure, it helps me when the kids are prepped and excited. I walk down the hall and see them pointing, whispering to each other, “That’s him!” My job becomes easy. But that’s not the point. Like everything else in life, the students get so much more out of an author visit when they’ve put something into it. When they’ve read and discussed books. Talked about them, thought about them, made meaningful connections. And at the end, when they bring home a book that’s been signed by the author, a book they are eager to read, well, that’s when the circle is complete and we can all call “the day” a success. Except it’s not a day . . .

An author visit doesn’t happen in a day. The author’s arrival is the cherry on the top. It is a culmination of your effort, time, and energy. Weeks and weeks of anticipation. Art projects. Research. Classroom discussion. Reading. Writing. Thinking. All of which happens when the author is off somewhere else.

Anyway, busy time of year for me. It’s wonderful (and disruptive) and inspiring to visit with students, to see and speak with readers. It makes me want to write more books. The irony is that when I’m out on school visits, I’m not at home, in my office, doing my job. I’m in a hotel and kind of groggy and usually a little bit sad to be away from my family.

But here’s the thing. I get a lot (a lot, a lot) of questions about “ideas.” Where they come from, etc. And to me, writing is not so much about ideas as it is about energy. I’m like Santa’s sleigh in the movie “Elf.” Unless the needle on the meter vibrates with life, there’s not going to be any liftoff.

More than anything, those visits to schools fuel me up. Thanks for the inspiration.

As an author, I’m fortunate in that I’ve written a range of books for ages 3-up, so I do entirely different presentations from Pre-K to 8th grade. Here I am with a K-1 group at Ballard Elementary. The kids standing to the left are my Greek Chorus of Hiccuppers. Seriously.

Look at this cast of characters! When there’s time and the inclination, I’ll enjoy lunch with a small group of students. It’s often the best part of my day.

My special thanks for the above photos go to Katie O’Donnell, the Library Media Specialist at Ballard Elementary. I mourn the fact that elementary-school librarians are not mandated positions in New York State. It’s insane. In these days of budget cuts, I worry that many schools are going to dismiss these essential educators. Great people

For Dr. Suess’s birthday, I did three school visits this week. The schools were vastly different: two were rural districts and one was probably one of the oldest buildings in the state; the other was urban and brand-new, complete with every bell and whistle, rug and computer you could want.

Yet, three things were constant:

First, the library media specialist was a VIP in the success of the school. It was obvious that these librarians cared, not just because they brought me in to speak (though, caring enough to bring in authors is special), but because they knew all the kids AND their taste in reading.

For the second and third things in common consider this: when I visit a school, I ask two questions. While I’m waiting for everyone to get into the auditorium or room, I talk to kids–hey, that’s what I’m there for, to interact with kids. “So,” I ask, “what have you been reading lately? Or what’s your favorite book you’ve read this year?”

And I ask the librarian, “What’s your circulation like? How many books do you check out each day/week/month? (Whichever stat they want to give me.)”

From those two questions, I can predict with almost 100% accuracy school with good reading scores and those on 2nd- or 3rd-year improvement (A term from the No Child Left Behind legislation, which loosely means their test scores are way below par).

Schools with high test scores

Kids are excited to tell me about the books they’ve been reading. Across a class, there are a number of titles, most of which I recognize, but often some I haven’t read or even heard of. The librarian reports checking out at least 1 book/child/week and usually the stats are far above that. (Ex. 500 books/week for a school with 500 students.)

Schools with low test scores

Kids often give excuses for not knowing the last book they read: I don’t like reading; I don’t remember, I just took the test and then forgot it; I don’t read. When titles are mentioned, it’s the one title that the teacher is currently reading aloud. The librarian reports few check-outs, usually citing the difficulty of keeping everything shelved.

For example, I went to one middle school of 500 students. The school had no library media specialist (mistake #1); the library aide reported that sometimes they checked out 25-30 books/day, but she liked it a lot better when they only checked out 15 because it was an easier day. What? A school of 500 students and they only checked out a max of 100-150 books/week and usually less than 100. Totally crazy!

Guess what? That school was on 2nd-year school improvement and was heading for a third year, with no help in sight (WHERE are you Library Media Specialist?)

Start asking the Questions when you visit schools and report back. If a school checks out at least 1 book/child/week–are the reading scores for that school good? And the opposite, if few books are checked out, are the scores