Bonnie Clark Virtual Author Visit

We virtually hosted author Bonnie Clark on February 10! Bonnie is the author of Taste Your Words and Catching Thoughts. Both of these books are great social and emotional learning titles. Bonnie joined us on Microsoft Teams. This allowed our students who are learning at home to join her presentation in addition to our face to face learners.

Bonnie's presentation focused on the book Taste Your Words. In this book, Amera uses unkind words to express her anger and frustration, her mother tells her to "taste her words." Then every mean word tastes terrible, like sour milk or rotten eggs! Amera quickly learns that kind words taste like jellybeans or watermelon or something else sweet. This book provides a wonderful message to students of all ages! The bright, colorful illustrations add to the engaging story.

Bonnie's presentation was very engaging. She started by talking about her history as a writer and how she came up with the idea for Taste Your Words. Then she read the book to students and asked them to share examples of kind words and what they might taste like. 

Last, she asked three staff members to participate in a taste test. Several days before the presentations, Bonnie dropped off some Jelly Belly Bean Boozled jellybeans. I gave three staff members one jellybean each. The jellybeans were spoiled milk or coconut flavored, rotten eggs or buttered popcorn flavored, and dog food or chocolate flavored. Bonnie re-read the part of her book that mentioned the flavors, and then the staff member with the corresponding jellybean ate it! Below is a picture of me eating a dog food flavored jellybean!

Best of all, Bonnie's visit was funded by the Georgia Writer's Association! This organization offers Literary Events Grants to help finance events featuring Georgia writers. I am so thankful to the Georgia Writer's Association for making this event possible! I know my students will remember to "taste their words" for a long time!