A few weekends ago, my school hosted a Children’s Literature Conference. We had amazing authors and illustrators give keynotes and lead workshops. The authors and illustrators that attended were Deborah Wiles, Kadir Nelson, Laura Vacarro Seeger and Chris Crutcher. I’m a huge fan of Kadir Nelson’s artwork, especially in the book, A Nation’s Hope! They shared their stories while challenging us to tell our own stories. Not only did I want to buy all these amazing books that these authors wrote and illustrated afterwards, but I was inspired to start writing my story.

One of the author/illustrators that came was Laura Vacarro Seeger. Her most recent picture book, Green was a Caldecott Honor book this year! She presented her inspiration for her various picture books by sharing her sketches and writer’s notebook. I was amazed at how she took pictures books to a whole new level through her creativity. I especially loved her book Green. Here is an amazing video of her book.

Laura even signed my book and took a photo! I found out later that she actually worked with my students in their art class. In addition to that, I had my students and their book buddies (2nd grade class) do an art activity together based on the book. After reading the book to them, we had the kids come up with their own “green” page in order to create a class book. They thought of a phrase and then drew the artwork to go with it. There were some very creative drawings and phrases from exit green, fast green, grass green, ocean green, funky green, alien green, jewel green and more! Thank you Laura for your inspiration!