Barnes & Noble Book Fair recap

I signed books at a book fair for Wells Elementary School at Barnes and Noble in Newington, NH last weekend. It was a wonderful event, with tons of people and some excellent performances by students and teachers. The book fair was organized by my wife, Sarah, and she and everyone in the WES PTSA did an amazing job. Here are a few pictures:

So many teachers made the trek to Newington to help out with the book fair. Here's computer teacher extraordinaire Mr. Sprankle on guitar and the one-and-only Mr. I on the banjo, entertaining the crowd with some excellent songs they wrote. One of my favorite lines: "Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be readers. Because then they'll be smarter than you..." or something like that...

Then Mr. Sprankle had the kids laughing their heads off as he read and performed a few Elephant and Piggie books. Did I mention that Mr. Sprankle is awesome?

Tough to follow up Mr. Sprankle's hilarious read-alouds of Mo Willems books with my own reading of a 19th century poem, but that's what I did! I read Over the River and Through the Wood, and then did a drawing demonstration with a live model posing as a baseball player.

Later in the afternoon I did another reading and drawing, but this time all the kids were freaking out because they ALL wanted to be the model. So I told them all to sit still, and I drew EVERYBODY. Then they all wanted to keep the picture, so we had a raffle.

My daughter and some of her classmates also sang Over the River and Through the Wood, which was awesome.

Wish I got more pictures, but I was too busy signing books! It seemed like the whole town of Wells was there, and people bought armloads of books and raised over $1300 for Wells Elementary School! Not too shabby.

After the book fair, many of the participants drove up to Portland, Maine to watch the Wells High School football team win the State Championship game. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!