A week of school visits in the Fraser Valley

A big thanks to Diana Marshall, Amy Gosling, and Rachel Burke from the Fraser Valley Regional Library for sending me on a nine-school tour of elementary schools in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia! What a fun week it was!

I talked to hundreds of students, mostly Grades 3 to 5, about how to become a cartoonist, and we did lots of fun drawing exercises together. When I do these talks, I’m always impressed by the creativity of the students. So many fun ideas and cool drawings!

And a big thank-you to the teachers and librarians who hosted me. I got some great feedback about my presentations. Some schools reported that their students were drawing chickens everywhere for hours after I’d left. And Cherry Hill Elementary even said that my visit was “Hands down the most engaging book talk ever!” Wow! 🙂

For me, these visits are very inspiring. In a world that often discourages people from spending time doing artistic things, it’s a great feeling to encourage kids to do more art and to see them get so excited about it. Driving from school to school all week should have tired me out (all that extroversion!) but instead I feel energized by the enthusiasm of everybody I met this week.