Teachers & Librarians

For Teachers & Librarians

Teachers: Print free teacher’s guides for the books below. They’re ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY JUST SO! Special thanks to Natalie Dias Lorenzi, who created the guides and is a fabulous children’s book author and teacher extraordinaire!

Maybelle in the SoupMaybelle Goes to Tea

Invite the Author to Your School

KatieSchoolI love school visits! Meeting my little readers is where the rubber meets the road for me as a writer. I tailor my presentations to second through fourth grades, but I can accommodate first and fifth graders as well.

Typical sessions include a PowerPoint presentation that accompanies my talk about:

● How I got the idea for the Maybelle books (What’s a nice middle-age lady doing writing about cockroaches and fleas?)
● How my grandmother and my little girl inspired me and gave me the courage to try to be what I’d always wanted to be
● The importance of reading to a writer (and to everyone else, for that matter)
● The journey of a newbie writer from first efforts through disappointment (Oh, the mailbox blues) and on to acceptance and publication, otherwise called revision, revision, revision
● The need for patience along every step of the way (There’s that mailbox again)
● How a story that started out on coffee stained three-by-five index cards became a real book
● How my illustrator brings the bugs in my imagination to life. And nobody screams
● The rewards of practice and perseverance
● A reading from my second book “Maybelle at the Fair,” time permitting.

I finish my sessions with 10 minutes or so of questions from the kids.

Teachers work amazingly hard and school days are packed with “must covers,” but I strongly urge that students be exposed to at least one of my books before I arrive. It’s lots more fun that way.

The Practicalities:

Kansas City area school visits are $500 a day. That includes four 45 minute presentations for groups of up to 200. Half days are $300 for two presentations.

Out-of-town visits are $750 a day plus expenses. To cut costs for individual schools I will split days if travel times between schools are reasonable.

I greatly appreciate payment on the day of my appearances.

I will need:

PowerPoint set up
Microphone
Water

I’m honored to sign books, but my publisher’s contract prohibits me from selling them. Book sales will need to be handled through the school. For a book order form you can download, click here.

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