Frank Cammuso's Author Visit

Author/illustrator, Frank Cammuso, visited our school last Tuesday.  He stayed the week in our district visiting all six elementary campuses.  He did two sessions at each school and signed books for us too.  He's a very down to earth guy and very easy to talk too.

At my school he spoke to Kinder-2nd.  He did a presentation then drew.  The students LOVED the drawing.  Half were yelling to draw a dog and the other half yelled for a duck.  So he drew the head of a dog with a duck body.  The students, of course, thought that was hilarious!  He also did a Q&A.  The first question was "How old are you?"  They never could get off the age thing so we stopped the questions.

3rd-5th had "better" questions for him.  They were very interested in why it took him a year to write and draw a book.  He talked in detail about that.










We have our sessions in the cafeteria.  It's the biggest place in our school to have assemblies.  But we start lunch at 10:30 with
Pre-k.  So when we finished the last session at 10:20 I always help our custodian and lunch ladies set up the tables.  Frank is the second author to jump in and help set up tables.  It always makes me feel a little bad that they are helping but if I was in their shoes I'd help too, so I never make a big deal about.  I just snap a picture and share it on our school Facebook page.  As you can see one of our lovely lunch ladies jumped in the picture.

I love collecting books signed by authors and illustrators.  I started one for my daughter when she was little and I'm starting one for my nephew too.  These are the books I had Frank sign for us.  

After our two sessions I took Frank to lunch.  Normally another librarian and I take him out but she's out sick so I chose a teacher to go with me.  Which was a hard choice!  So I ended up picking the teacher who had come to all the Book Studies we had on Reading In The Wild by Donalyn Miller.  Frank wanted TexMex so we headed to Posado's.  I told him how my best friend ate her flour tortillas, chips crushed up, with butter and and syrup on top, roll and eat.  He tried it and said it was like a dessert.  I had to snap a picture and text to my BFF.  I love Frank's funny pose! One of the things Frank said while we were at lunch was that it was fun to be a celebrity that no one recognizes.  Which is so funny because as we were sitting in the restaurant I kept thinking "No one knows we are sitting here with an author!"

When we got back to school we took a selfie by our school sign.  I asked if we could put "Welcome Frank Cammuso" on our sign.  It didn't get done that morning which was really no big deal but when one of the principals realized it they put it up by the time we got back from lunch.  Frank found it funny.  We did try! 

If you're ever looking for an author/illustrator to visit I highly recommend Frank!