We had an author make a surprise visit to our classroom this week! This year, we read aloud One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt and the kids loved it! They loved it so much that the book was one of our winners in our March Madness Book Edition and also won Book of the Year and Read Aloud of the Year last week when we voted on our Classroom Book Awards. I posted about the awards, One for the Murphys received, on this blog and on Twitter. Lynda Mullaly Hunt was very honored and asked me to please thank the kids!
Well….
Wednesday morning at about 8:30, who walks into our classroom?? Lynda Mullaly Hunt!! She surprised us with a visit to meet us and thank us for honoring her books with these awards. It was one of the best surprises ever! She spent a couple of hours in our classroom talking, sharing, reading some of the students’ writing, and passing out signed bookmarks and bookplates. She also gave the kids a steel penny from the WWII time period and told the fascinating story behind it and how it connects to one of the books she is currently writing. She even read aloud a chapter from one of the books she is working on, called Alphabet Soup, and had the kids brainstorm and vote on a title for the chapter. She is going to use that chapter title in the published book and include the class in her acknowledgments! The kids were beyond excited about all of this and can't wait for Alphabet Soup to be published. They absolutely loved getting to know Carley in One for the Murphys and look forward to getting to know many more of her characters in the future! If you have not had the pleasure of reading One for the Murphys yet, put it on the top of you TBR stack for this summer!
I just had to take a moment and share part of our fabulous day we had this week with Lynda Mullaly Hunt and share what an amazing person she is! She has a heart of gold and went out of her way to make the day memorable for all! It was truly an honor to have the pleasure of meeting her and having her as a guest in our classroom.
Thank you Lynda Mullaly Hunt for surprising us and spending time with us this week - we deeply appreciate everything!
Also, thank you Kristen Brighenti for helping to keep this visit top secret and a surprise!
Cheers to an amazing week! :)
Oh, such a sweet post, Melanie. Thank you. The pleasure was mine--truly. An amazing group of kids you have there. And you are pretty great, too! High point of my whole month!
ReplyDeleteMelanie, what a wonderful surprise! I don't know if your school year is almost at the end, but if it is, what a great way to end it! I can't imagine how excited your students must be about reading and writing after the visit! Maybe a few future authors in the midst???
ReplyDeleteHi Jaana - Yes, tomorrow is the last day for the kids so it was a great way to end the year!! :)
DeleteThat is awesome. Talk about a great way to encourage life-long readers, they'll never forget when a real author stopped by.
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