Last Saturday was Read Across America Day. The Friday before, I read to two classes of fourth graders. What a treat! Because I’m always in teaching mode, I started with a quick bit about how a book goes from a writer’s pencil to the paper, then gets feedback from an expert so the author can revise it before sending it off to a publisher. That covered, on to the Big Event: I read aloud from my work-in-progress.
Yep, my WIP. That hadn’t been the plan. I’d brought several published books for them to choose from. But the teacher, who’d been my sons’ teacher, knew I had a WIP and she’d heard parts of it already, so she and the kids encouraged me to read that. Thanks to smartphone technology, I was able to open up the Word doc on the spot and tuck in. The kids laughed when I’d hoped they would. They gasped when I hoped they would. And they begged me not to stop when my time was up, which I really really hoped they would.
I dare say, I got as much out of Read Across America as they did. Reading rocks!
