On Friday April 8, Roessleville and Forest Park Elementary Schools both welcomed Author Lowey Bundy Sichol, to read with and speak to their students. This author visit marked the culmination of months of collaborative work between school librarians; Colleen Kuno at Forest Park, and Maureen King at Roessleville. The two schools adopted the One School One Book Program starting in March with hopes that students would continue to grow their love for reading alongside their peers, while having some fun along the way. 

To kick off this program beginning with their chosen book, From an Idea to LEGO, library staff introduced crafts and interactive learning tools to stir up excitement in students. Activities included designing LEGO characters as well as building scenes and figures. Touching on the inventive focus of the book, students were also asked to conceptualize and design a product that they would like to see hit the shelves. In hopes of inducing excitement throughout the student body, some of these activities were building-wide challenges giving classes the chance to work as a team to display a LEGO sculpture of their own creation in the front of the building.

“The kids had so much fun creating their lego characters, the creativity we saw from them was truly incredible. This, having been my first year as a librarian participating in the One Book One School program, really shed some light on the levels of teamwork and problem solving that can come from giving students more opportunities to collaborate." said Roessleville’s Maureen King.

On the day of the visit, students were grouped by grade level and sent down to the cafeteria to listen to Sichol give a presentation about her work and the process of cultivating great ideas. Students learned the steps to writing fiction and nonfiction books, and interacted with the concept of entrepreneurship through games and real world examples of companies that shape the world around them.

”Our hope for this author visit was to get kids inspired. The subject matter of Sichol’s series focuses on bringing ideas to life, starting with a concept and nurturing that idea. Giving the kids tangible evidence of these seemingly small inventions growing into something bigger, can make the impossible feel so much more possible.” Said Forest Park Librarian, Colleen Kuno. “By having the kids work together on these classroom projects, they’re learning the skills they will need in order to not only make their own ideas blossom, but also help others' ideas come to fruition as well.”

Each session was followed up with a short Q&A with the author. Students enthusiastically seized this opportunity and were able to gain further insight into the conception, execution, and finalization of the process authors go through in order to get their work published. For older students, this conversation had familiar undertones as they have been learning about the process of invention in social studies classes. For all students, involvement in the One School One book program helps to foster a love of reading and develop the skills needed to analyze text critically. These basic skills lay the groundwork for more difficult reading comprehension skills that are needed as students progress through high school and beyond.