JAN BRETT VISITS ND!

Who, you may ask is Jan Brett. Well, she is only the world's best children's author and illustrator of all time. In my opinion at least. She visited Minot this past Friday. Let's just say this teacher was pretty giddy and just as antsy as most of her students all day on Friday. Andrew was pretty excited too. He told his classmates that he was taking a trip to see Jan Brett.

Her newest book The Gingerbread Friends (a squeal to Gingerbread Baby) was the reason for her tour. She spoke for about a half an hour about the book and little about herself as an artist, reader, and writer.

She said that she sees herself as an illustrator before author.She even drew the Gingerbread Baby for us from the book.

Amazing talent!

Barnes and Nobel passed out tickets for her book signing. We were ticket number 94 out of about 125. This was a great because you didn't have to worry about losing your place in line or stay in your spot in line the entire time.


The kids and I wondered around the store, read books, and visited with Hedgie, the hedgehog. Hedgie is the character from her books The Hat and The Mitten.

At 7:30 (two 1/2 hours later) we visited with Jan Brett. She was so polite and talked a lot to Andrew. Most authors I have visited with say thanks for coming sign your book and away you go. But not Jan Brett, she asked Andrew if he liked to read, if he liked to draw, what his favorite color was, and his favorite animal. He was polite and answered the questions with a huge smile on his face.

Grace was a little shy. Jan Brett asked her if she wanted to put a stamp in our book, and she hid behind me. So Andrew stamped it. She got pretty upset and was willing to stamp the next book.



I told that I teach and was a huge fan. I also told her about my bulletin boards in my classroom. She said that was great and she was "very honored."
(my bulletinboards)




We had her sign three books, Andrew's new Gingerbread Friends, my The Three Snow Bears, and the library's Gingerbread Baby. She also signed our ticket, which I will put in my Gingerbread Friends book along with the top picture.

A perk of being a teacher is that they gave us buttons for our students and a paper doll gingerbread baby to decorate.






This was an amazing opportunity. I am so glad we made the trip. It is surely something I will never forget. Hopefully Andrew will remember the experience, but Grace probably not.

If you are interested in Jan Brett or her books, go to janbrett.com. There is tons of things to print, videos to enjoy, and all of her books.

PS Thanks to Becka (former colleague), Stuart, and Sam (who is 5 weeks older than Grace) for letting us stay with them that evening. We enjoyed our visit.