Author Jack Gantos Visits Weston Middle School [VIDEO]

It’s not every day that a Newbery Medal-winning author visits a local school—which made Friday a very special day at .

Jack Gantos, prolific author of such perennial children’s favorites as the Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza series and many other novels and picture books, visited sixth-graders at the school for the 11^th consecutive year, taking the time to visit with friends he’s made there over the years.

“I think this is a particularly good school that clearly has a good English department and a thriving library,” Gantos said of his repeat visits to WMS.

And just days before the visit, Gantos was named the 2012 Newbery Medal winner for Dead End in Norvelt, an autiobiographical middle-grade novel that the Association for Library Service to Children, the organization that awards the medal, calls an “achingly funny romp through a dying New Deal town” that Gantos “narrates … in an endearing and believable voice.”

How he arrived at that style of narration was the crux of his presentations, which he said he dispels to give kids a “sense of how to get started in writing."

“My goal here is always to help them realize they have great things in their lives, living content they can write about, and I tell them how to take that content and give it structure and form,” said Gantos.

As such, Gantos displayed a “story map” on a projection screen that showed rooms in a house with various details from his childhood like “sister’s room,” “mean dog,” and “exploding hot dogs.”

He showed a clear knack for what would hold the attention of sixth graders, describing at great length, while he narrated portions the story map, certain squeamish childhood experiences that included giving himself blood poisoning by wrenching off a wart with rusty pliers, and learning the proper technique for throwing up.

Gantos told the kids their overarching goal should be to get a journal and write in it for “for 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, and before you know it, you’ll have something significant” in which, ultimately, “readers should see what you see, feel what you feel, and experience the story as you did.”

The students’ reactions to the presentation reflected Gantos’s approach of layering instruction with funny anecdotes, with Amanda Mosher saying, “The presentation was really exciting and it was funny to hear the story about the wart. Even though it was gross.”

“It’s good he can make fun of himself and awesome that he taught us how to write,” said Will Black.

Philly Gildea said she was impressed by the fact that “keeping a journal when he was young totally changed (Gantos's) future” while Annie Revers noted his ability to “help us see what goes into a story and how we can make it interesting.”

In between the student presentations, Gantos met informally at the school library with current and retired staff members, with whom he discussed a variety of topics that included the Newbery honor, his writing process, and his teenage daughter.

“He makes it very exciting” for the children, said WMS librarian Linda Preissel. “He can light up a room.”

Sixth-grade teacher Dave Poras said he was impressed by Gantos’s work ethic—at one point, Gantos told the students a novel sometimes takes up to 100 drafts before it is published—and hoped the kids would take that to heart.

“Every year I am struck by the amount of time it takes and it’s good for the kids to hear that,” said Poras. “It’s not only talent. It takes an incredible amount of hard work.”

Jack Gantos's visit was funded by the Weston Education Enrichment Fund Committee (WEEFC) as part of the Wordfest program. According to WEEFC Chair Joan Heilbronner, other children's authors who will visit Weston schools as part of Wordfest in coming months include longtime participant Jeff Kelly, Jarrett Krosoczka, Suzy Kline, Alan Kurzweil and Brian Lees.

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