Two weeks ago I had the honour of being the Surprise Mystery Guest for Duck Bites, a podcast run by grade 4 and 5 students at North Gower Marlborough Public School in Ottawa, Canada. This was a special evening event that the students and their teachers, Christopher Rowsome and Leslie Mott, put together so the kids could showcase all the stuff they’ve learned this year to their parents and families, and I was there because the kids are doing River of Crows as a class novel study. (OMG! Kids are doing my book as a class novel study!!! SO. EXCITED. 😆 )
The puppets do a round-table
Before they interviewed me, the kids — using their puppets — talked about character, plot, and setting and did a round-table discussion about what they thought would happen next, and it was such a hoot hearing their thoughts and theories about what they’d read so far! I was sitting in the audience at this point, grinning madly and thinking they were definitely going to be in for some BIG surprises as they got further into the book. Here’s the clip on YouTube:
I am interviewed by a sock puppet
Here’s the clip in which I am interviewed by a sock puppet. Most of the kids in the two classes involved in this were sitting on the floor behind the lectern, waiting for their turns to do the puppet stuff, so that’s who I’m waving to at the beginning. And you can’t see the audience until the very end, but it was packed with parents and siblings! The kids weren’t told that I was going to be a guest for this episode until just before I was called up for them to interview me, so it was a big surprise for them!
This was such a fun evening and I was blown away by how much time and effort both classes must have put in in order to make the evening run so smoothly. I was just one of many interviewees that evening, and they were also running prerecorded segments in between interviews, so it was huge technical challenge, and they handled it all like pros.
Crow art!
Did I mention the art gallery displays they created? All the kids had drawn Streak going through the portal in the woods and they were all up on the gym walls for everyone to admire, and it was so cool to see all the different interpretations and colour choices for that! Here are just a few of those gorgeous pieces of art:
All the kids went home at the end of the evening with a signed and personalized paperback copy of the new edition of River of Crows that was just released last month (and which has fancy new typesetting and bonus material) and an Arcanium Saga bookmark.
I just want to send a HUGE thank you to Mr. Rowsome and Mrs. Mott and all the Duck Bites cast and crew for a truly memorable evening. This was my very first author visit with a school, and you all made me feel like a rock star! 😊
There were a lot more segments and interviews in this episode, so be sure to check out the rest of it. You’ll learn about vermiculture and some of the community building stuff the kids have been involved in, and they’ll make you hungry when they each tell you what they learned how to do on their own this year — there were a lot of cooking answers, most of which involved grilled cheese!
