I’m back from Nova Scotia where I spent Friday morning with the first ever Scholastic Canadian National Book Fairs winners at the Tantallon Jr. High School. In preparation for the event, the students held their book fair, sought sponsorships from the community, built Goblets of Fire and made dragons, sold lots of books (a good portion of the sales of each book goes to the school) and generally had a fun time. For winning, the students of Tantallon got a thousand dollars for the library, and a visit from me. Ingrid Taylor, one of the organizers of the event sent me this e-mail:

PS – the school is VERY EXCITED!!! Apparently there is a boy named Duncan with Down's syndrome that was not reading at all. So Erica gave him a copy of Bone and he loved it! Now he is reading and can't wait to meet Jeff. He will be at the pizza lunch and we will give him a copy of Bone #3 for Jeff to sign.

The picture at the top is of me reading with Duncan. He didn’t want to stop after the cameras left, so we kept reading to the end of the chapter!

This dark shot is the BONE reading I did for both assemblies. It ends with Gran’ma Ben’s farmhouse in flames… it’s always fun to hear the kids gasp when they realize I’m going to end the reading with a cliff hanger.

This is the Student Crew that did all the hard work. The complete list includes Cameron, Drew, Natasha, Andrew, Alex, Kayla, Brittany, Sarah, Dawson, Katie, Duncan, and Brandon. And of course, their fearless leader, Library Support Specialist Erica. We ate pizzas in the library and had many animated discussions about fantasy books. I enjoyed the kids so much, and I hope they had a good time, too. Just enough time for a quick detour to Peggy’s Cove before heading back to the airport and home.