Slice of Life: In Mary's Garden 3/20

I am participating again this year in the Slice of Life challenge in which we write a slice every day in March. If you are interested in joining in, visit the Two Writing Teachers blog for more information.

Today we had an author's visit at school. I love that I have hooked up with the local independent bookstore, Boswell Book Company. I am on their school contact list and I get the e-mails about the opportunities for author visits.

This morning, we had Tina and Carson Kugler visit our school. This married couple wrote and illustrated the book In Mary's Garden, which was released on Tuesday. What is so cool about this is that this book is about a local artist and pertains to a local bit of folklore. I absolutely enjoyed meeting the Kuglers as well as hearing about the work it took to make this picture book. It was so great to have our students learn about this really neat local attraction and possibly get them to ask their families to go visit.

Mary Nohl was a local Milwaukee artist who used found objects to build sculptures in her yard. She built an amazing space that was locally famous and many people came to visit it.

I really enjoyed hearing more about this interesting artist. I loved that the authors really focused on their own process. They worked hard to honor the artwork while also working to tell the story of this interesting woman. The video below talks about the artist. 

The authors were amazing and I am so excited that we were able to host this event at my school. This is a wonderful picture book and I think it is such an interesting story. I hope many people buy this book and share our fun story about the local artist who brought intrigue to the shores of Lake Michigan.




Then when doing some research, I realized that Mr. Schu did a blog post about this book. If this isn't an amazing recommendation for this picture book, I don't know what is. To find out more about the book visit Mr. Schu's blog here. 

I am so excited that I got to experience a little bit of the fun book release party for this spectacular picture book.

(of course, I forgot to take pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it)

I love that I can provide this type of opportunity to my students.