Skip to main content

A Celebration of Imagination

One day. Two "Adams." Four sessions. 

Recently, boys in all grades got the inside scoop on writing and illustrating books when they were visited by notable published authors Adam Auerbach and Adam Gidwitz.

Mr. Auerbach, author and illustrator of The Three Vikings, Legendary Creatures: Mythical Beasts and Spirits From Around the World, Monkey Brother, and the Ezra Jack Keats Honor book Edda: A Little Valkyrie’s First Day of School met with the Lower School boys. While reading aloud The Three Vikings to boys in Grades K through One, he transported them through a "mythical tale that celebrates teamwork, acceptance, the power of music, and the art of storytelling." 

He also led the boys in drawing an original character, an amalgam of diverse animals generated by the boys' imaginations, and shared the long journey a book takes through writing, editing, illustrating, and production. One third grader noted he was particularly "impressed to learn about the multiple rewrites and re-drawings during the writing and illustrating process."

Upper School boys were visited by the dynamic Adam Gidwitz, author of the Unicorn Rescue and Grimm series of fairy tale "re-tells."  Mr. Gidwitz captivated the boys with one of his reworked fairy tales - The Iron Shoes, about a boy whose father thinks he will amount to nothing, and how he struggles through haunted castles and his own mistakes to amount to something great indeed. 

Mr. Gidwitz had the following advice for boys who want to be a published author: "Spend as much time as you can imagining. If you want big arm muscles, you do push-ups. If you want a brain capable of holding whole imaginary worlds and long narratives all at once, the best exercise you can do is imagining. Reading is a form of imagining. Video games, isn’t. Playing with toys is. Even playing solo on a basketball court, talking to yourself, is. That’s how I prepared to become an author. By nurturing a rich imaginative world." 

The boys were riveted by Gidwtiz's presentation. One eighth grader especially appreciated Mr. Gidwitz's personal journey: "Mr. Gidwitz gave a lot of background about how he became an author. It didn't feel scripted, and that was nice." For his part, Mr. Gidwitz was impressed with how our boys "were eager to learn, to laugh, to get emotional—and to talk to me after about their experience of my talk. Consequently, it was a joy to talk to them."

All boys received complimentary books and Upper School boys had the opportunity to have their books autographed by Mr. Gidwitz. 

Highly interactive and thoroughly engaging, these sessions were sponsored by the school's PA Author Series Committee led by Susan Austin and Caroline Shook and were made possible through the support and leadership of our Librarians, Winnie Feng and Gretchen King. Each year, the series provides our boys with the opportunity to learn from and interact with a published author, thereby gaining insights into the challenges and rewards of writing and illustrating books. All, while celebrating the power of imagination. 


Popular posts from this blog

The Wisdom Within - A Matter of Trust

The Teaching Boys Initiative (TBI) is a cornerstone of Saint David’s School’s strategic vision, aimed at developing a robust framework of evidence-based best practices in boys’ education. The initiative’s primary goal is to empower educators with the knowledge, skills, habits, and dispositions of reflective practitioners, enhancing their professional growth and the overall quality of teaching and learning for boys.  In TBI's new quarterly blog series, "The Wisdom Within," our faculty share stories that inform, inspire, and encourage reflective practice using evidence-based approaches in teaching and learning for boys.  The following inaugural entry, "A Matter of Trust," was written by reflective practitioner and Master Teacher Tom Ryan, who has been inspiring generations of Saint David's boys for more than 53 years. A MATTER OF TRUST …but, I digress. I cannot possibly begin any writing piece, and/or class, without some digression that, as I have said to my s...
Read more

"The Wisdom Within" - Bringing Sound to Space

In the second entry of our Teaching Boys Initiative's quarterly blog series, "The Wisdom Within," Saint David's reflective practitioner and Master Teacher Cathy O'Neill explores the pedagogical power of play in the education of young boys. BRINGING SOUND TO SPACE It began with a mound of mangled metal and the vapor of a vision gleaned from recent comments and random fact-dropping by the Pre-K boys. Unsure of what exactly I was looking for, but fueled by the idea of a makeshift rocket to dovetail with our upcoming space unit, I gingerly picked through the scrap pile until my hands grazed an old VW control panel devoid of its dashboard. Eureka! An array of knobs, dials, and buttons - while in reality, dead as doornails - in the right small hands, would become the epicenter of our NASA-inspired dramatic play corner. With a couple of lawn chairs and some old CB radio microphones to round out the set, engines would be ignited by the power of imagination. All systems go...
Read more

Jack Mullin '12 : Reflections on a Mom's Love

The Chapel talk tradition at Saint David's provides faculty and alumni with the opportunity to share with our boys meaningful and inspiring personal stories: their experiences, lessons learned, challenges overcome. The annual Fifth Grade Mother-Son Chapel gathers our fifth-grade boys and their mothers or mother figures for a special shared pre-Mother's Day experience; a Chapel Talk by a young alumnus who reflects upon the role his mother has played in his life. This year, we welcomed former Student Council President Jack Mullin '12. Jack's family has deep roots with school. His older brother Patrick graduated in '08 and his dad, Terry, in 1973. Jack's talk centered on the impact both his alma mater and his mother, Immy, have had on his development into the man he is today. Below are excerpts that I would like to share: "My family's multi-generational lineage is a testament to the incredible sense of community Saint David’s fosters, and I too hope I have...
Read more