Author/illustrator David Biedrzycki visited my school on March 31! His book, Breaking News: Bear Alert, won the Georgia Children's Book Award in 2016. Bear Alert is a hilarious picture book about two bears who make their way from the forest to a city, where they coincidentally foil a couple of burglars' plans. The book is loaded with references to storybook bears, such as Winnie the Pooh and Paddington.
Before Mr. Biedrzycki's visit, I invited all of the kindergarten through second grade classes into the media center for a storytime. We reread Bear Alert and some of his other books, such as Breaking News: Bears to the Rescue, Ace Lacewing: Bug Detective, and Santa's New Jet.
Mr. Biedrezycki's presentation is one of the best I have seen from a visiting author. During his presentation, he summarized Bear Alert, pointing out several bear references in the illustrations that I had not noticed, even after reading the book dozens of times. Before the presentation, he took a picture of me acting scared and inserted the picture into the picture where the bears walk into the diner and surprise the patrons. The kids went wild when they saw my picture in the page from the book! He also showed students how he creates art in Photoshop by drawing a beetle.
The presentation was very inspiring for our students. I had at least a dozen students come to the media center in the days after the presentation to show me the writer's notebook they started or how they drew a beetle modeled after Mr. Biedrzycki's.
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