Mara Rockliff, author visit at school

Last Thursday Samuel's school had a visit from author Mara Rockliff. She did a 40 minute or so presentation about a book she wrote, Pieces of Another World, and gave an inspiring description of her job as an author: what inspires her, how she got the idea to write her book, other books she has written, the experience of trying to get a book published, pseudonyms she uses and why. Her presentation was both informative and entertaining and the students enjoyed it.

The book Pieces of Another World is about a girl who goes to see a meteor shower with her dad late one night and it brings in all the magic that a child experiences when they get to go out late, the things they see in their town, and the wildlife they see. There are 4 pages at the end of the book with information and some fun activities related to comets and meteors. The illustration in the book is lovely as well, it goes along nicely with the "magical" feeling you get from the story.

Parents were invited to attend this event at the school and after checking out the author's website I was intrigued. I wanted to take my oldest son, who loves the subject of outer space and who likes to write stories. I knew that it wouldn't be possible to attend this when Samuel went because he gets very agitated when he sees us at school. Fortunately I was able to take him and two of his friends to another session. It was great, I think her presentation not only reached my son for the outer space part, but also in her discussion of her experiences as an author. She had a slide show from her computer along with her talk and she did a great job getting the children to participate by asking questions.

Later in the day when I asked Samuel about seeing this he seemed to enjoy it based on the comments he made. The things that made a lasting impression for him were two pictures she showed in her slide show of Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers - she wrote to him when she was a child), and The Berenstain Bears (she met the authors when she was a child).

My little plug for her is not nearly doing her or her presentation justice, so check out her website: mararockliff.com. Maybe your child's school would like to have her visit. I highly recommend it and I highly recommend her book Pieces of Another World!