We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be doing an author/illustrator visit and all-school, hardcover book giveaway at Chestertown’s own HH Garnet Elementary School on April 29th!
Garnet was Robbi’s elementary school—and it’s the school Alden and Kato attended, Augie currently attends, and Jasper will attend one day. It’s a warm and welcoming community with devoted and incredibly hard-working teachers and administrators. We’re so grateful for everything they do to create the best possible learning environment in spite of significant and ongoing budget shortfalls.
A Title I school with 88 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, Garnet shares many of the joys and challenges of the 52 schools we’ll be visiting on the Busload of Books Tour—which is why we’re thinking of this event as an unofficial Tour kick-off. In addition to giving two assemblies and meeting with a small group of students interested in writing and drawing, we’ll be doing a second pilot study with the research team at Washington College.
The book giveaway has been made possible by a generous donation from the Friends of the Kent County Public Library, who are funding free hardcover copies of Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom for Garnet’s 2-5th grade students and teachers. The pre-K-1st grade kids will be getting copies of either Babies Ruin Everything or Sunrise Summer—purchased with funding from the Kent Judy Center at Garnet Elementary (a resource devoted to comprehensive, community-based early learning programs for pre-school children and families).
Thanks to everyone who has worked so hard to make this event a reality, especially Principal Rose and the wonderful Flo Terrill, Garnet’s Community School Coordinator, who will be our hosts on April 29. Stay tuned for another post with Flo’s thoughts on her work and the Garnet community.
(And a grateful shout out to first-grade teacher extraordinaire Rachel Cording Hopkins who lovingly introduced Alden, Kato, and August to the joys of elementary school.)
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