Merlin's Blog

Monday 12/9/19, the day everyone has been waiting for, the day that he came to our school. Matt Tavares writer of Growing Up Pedro, Mudball and “Dasher” Illustrator of Crossing Niagara and Growing up Ted Williams he had an amazing speech on how he made his books. The talk included a slide show that had pictures of his studio and unreleased work, Matt even showed the students the front cover of his next book which will be called Ben Of All Trades.

Matt also drew a reindeer as a demonstration of his work, and it turned out pretty good. 

He showed the students that it takes a little more than a year to make a picture book. Matt says, “If you thought authors would bang out books send them in, then you thought wrong.” Matt explained how long it took to make just one illustration, a little more than a week at the least.  

Mrs. Marc-Aurele was freaking out more than anyone else because she is a huge Matt Tavares fan and could barely even talk to Matt Tavares, even though she was with him all day, (she’s a huge fan of Matt Tavares). Others, like Mrs. Marc-Aurele were talking excitedly all around the school.

A few kids got to even have lunch with Matt! This was a special occasion that has never happened at this school! ( the lunch, not the author.)

   A little later in the day kids got to have a drawing session with Matt. Each kid got a slip of paper that said “I kept flying trying to catch up, soon I found myself in a place unlike any I had ever seen.”  Each student was told to draw what came to mind for them. No one got erasers, which was troubling to some students.

 Each student’s drawing was unique. The drawings ranged from Spiderman to people being shot out of cannons, and many others. The book that the words come from is “Red and Lulu” a lovely Christmas story about two cardinals. 

Everyone was sad when Matt had to leave.