Friday was an exciting day in the LRC when we had a visit from Jacqueline Harvey on her “Alice-Miranda in New York” book tour…
Jacqueline Harvey & Alice-Miranda Visit St Martin’s on PhotoPeach
Jacqueline is a great storyteller and we loved hearing the story of her journey to become a writer. We trembled when she told us about a scary teacher she had before she met Mrs Hogan who inspired her to become a teacher. Jacqueline has always loved to write and as a teacher she wrote lots of plays for her students to perform. Jacqueline regularly talked about one day writing books for children until her husband challenged her to actually do it and not just talk about it! (Thank goodness he did!)
Did you know…
- Jacqueline has never met the illustrator who draws the covers of the Alice-Miranda books
- There is a signature pink item on each Alice-Miranda book cover
- Jacqueline has used Google to inspire ideas for her settings. She is going to visit some of the houses she has used in her stories when she visits America and England
- There are going to be ten Alice-Miranda books
Writing Tips:
- You need to plan your story well before you start writing
- You have to care about your characters
- When Jacqueline was stuck writing a description of Miss Grimm she was given some advice from fellow author, Markus Zusac. He said to think about the way the character would look and then write the OPPOSITE
- Jacqueline uses a variety of settings for her stories so she can introduce new characters
- Nasty characters are FUN to write – you can make them quite despicable!
Jacqueline encouraged us to follow our dreams just as she has followed her dream to become a writer …
P.S – How exciting! Jacqueline’s visit to our school is on Alice-Miranda’s blog! Check it out here
Dear Miss Y,
Thanks so much for posting photos of your visit with Jacqueline Harvey! It looks like you all had such an incredible time!
I was so impressed by the Alice Miranda bulletin board! That is incredible. How did you make that?
I wonder if Jacqueline will travel to America soon? It sure would be wonderful if she came to Seattle!
From,
Mrs. Hembree
Hi Mrs Hembree
Mrs Collins, my Library Assistant who works with me on Mondays is responsible for our fabulous displays!
Mrs Collins’ artistic talents are a gift to our LRC. I can think of an idea for a display and Mrs Collins brings it to life! In the Alice-Miranda display, Mrs Collins used her trusty chalk pastels to colour Alice-Miranda. (My job is to cut out the letters!!)
If you look at our “LRC Displays” page you can see more of Mrs Collins’ amazing displays…
Fingers crossed Jacqueline Harvey will get to Seattle in the not too distant future!
Miss Y 🙂
I think Ted Looks great!
Ted’s Mum
I thought Ted looked fabulous and loved the way he got into the spirit of the occasion! Jacqueline Harvey loved Ted’s effort and sense of humour too!
Miss Y 🙂
This sounds like a very interesting visit.
Another inspiring experience in the SMOT LRC. I feel like curling up in your library all day with a pile of books.
Dear Miss Y,
I loved it when I saw Jacqueline Harvey because I like seeing all different sort of authors and the L.R.C looks better and smells better than last year.
Aury
Hi Mrs Hobbs
I think Jacqueline inspired lots of us with our reading and writing!
I’d love to have the time to read piles of books in the LRC, but at the moment I have piles of books to scan out to classrooms or put back on the shelves!
Miss Y 🙂
Hi Aury
I agree with you, I love seeing and listening to lots of authors. That’s what I did at the Children’s Book Festival on Sunday!
Do you mean that the LRC has lost its “new” smell now?
Miss Y 🙂
Thank you Miss Yeomans for the slide show to share highlights from Jacqueline Harvey’s visit to St Martin’s. You organise fabulous events to share details about all the great resources in the LRC. Together Miss Yeomans and Mrs Collins make the LRC the BEST place to be.
Mrs Stewart
Thank you all for a fabulous morning. I would have loved to stay all day and I hope that perhaps next year I can come back again and work with the children for longer – writing workshops would be fabulous! Thanks Miss Y for the amazing presentation on the blog – you are an inspiring educator and St Martin’s is blessed to have you there. Thanks to Mrs Collins for the incredible display which I can tell has been the talk of Random House since we came. Love the LRC and that I now know exactly who I’m chatting with on Twitter 🙂 Ted is a superstar for dressing up – as are the other children too. Have a wonderful week and I hope you all have a terrific Easter holiday too. I will try to blog as much from the USA and UK as I can. Jacqueline Harvey xx
Hi Jacqueline
We would love to have you come and do writing workshops with us next year. There are lots of budding writers who would love to learn the craft of writing from you!
Have a wonderful time in the USA and UK! We will stay tuned to read your adventures.
It’s also very exciting to see that we are on Alice-Miranda’s blog…
Miss Y 🙂
Dear Miss Y,
Hi, I am Skye from 4KJ, Australia.
What a super post especially the PhotoPeach. How exciting is that, a famous author came to your school. You’re lucky. I love Jacqueline Harvey’s books. I have only read a couple of them and they were super. I can’t wait to read more of them.
I wish an author came to our school. It would be so cool to meet a famous author.
I have a blog and if you want to visit this is the address: http://skyessuperblog.global2.vic.edu.au/
From,
Skye
Hi Skye
Thank you for visiting our LRC Blog and leaving such a wonderful comment.
We were very excited to have an author visit our school! Now we have settled into our new library we will be able to invite more authors!
We enjoyed listening to Jacqueline talk about how she created her Alice-Miranda character. We were really interested to learn that Jacqueline uses Google to find pictures of houses for ideas for the settings in her stories.
Do you have a teacher librarian in your library? If you do, you might ask if they could invite an author to your school too!
I’m going to look at your blog now…
Miss Y 🙂
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