Author, Author,Author

Last Thursday was Author day at school. Parents were invited to read the stories the fourth graders had been working on this term.  Lots of imagination at work.

 

After school we learned from our friends that Lincoln Peirce the author of the Big Nate books was speaking at Hooray for Books that night.

 

 

So we gave up TKD class to go see him.  If you don't have 8-12 years old boys, or don't read the comics you may not know Big Nate.  We're not talking Nate Berkus here.  This 11 year old character is all the rage with his adventures in the sixth grade.  There's even a game on line, Big Nate's Island.  That measurable fan base led to Lincoln the writing the books.  Lincoln drew some of the characters, starting with Nate.  This is the early version of Nate.  He evolved over the years.

 

 Here's today's Nate.  The secret is to use shapes it is easy to repeat.

Arch enemy of the boys Gina Hemphill-Toms with glasses.  Her name is hyphenated because he forgot the first name Hemphill he gave her, later he called her Toms in a book, so he put in a hyphen.

 

 Different hair can define the character. Best friend Teddy.

 

 

He explained that reading comics was "real" reading and showed some of the ideas cartoonists had come up with to tell a story in pictures.  Like the balloon for speech, the symbols for #@$%!* (you know).

 The ZZZ's for sleep.

He told how he started (at age six) and learning to put the words in first, then do the balloon, how to place the story balloons so they read right to left.

He draws his stories from his life as a sixth grader.  He has not run out yet.  When he is just sitting at his desk his mind is working reliving sixth grade even if his pen is not in action.

Coach John is modeled on some he knew.

After speaking he signed our books.

 

 Even the one for a friend.

It wasn't how we planned our day, but it was a nice follow up for our two authors and the school writing project.