I am often asked by teachers or school librarians to speak to the kids in their schools.

When I do a school visit, I generally give three or four presentations per day, each to different grades. I talk to the kids about how I research, write, and illustrate my children’s books. I bring rough sketches, rough drafts, color proofs, and even some original paintings. And it’s always a hit when I bring out the giant ancient shark tooth and the sabertooth-cat fang.

Each presentation is usually about forty five minutes, which includes as many questions as we can get in. After that I sign books that the students have bought through their school.

Most schools offer my books for sale to their students before my arrival. I then sign the kids' books during my visit. Schools get a discount from the publisher for these books. Sometimes the school passes the discount on to the student, but sometimes they sell the books to the students at full price and keep the profit to help pay my speaking fee. (Sometimes the school even makes a profit.)

Some teachers, in order to make it easy for their kids to order my books, have created order forms that the kids can bring home. Their parents then can fill in which books they might want, along with the child's name that I will sign the book to, and send the form back to school with a check. I have created a form that you can use. Click here to see the form and print it out.

If you would like to order my books for your students, click here to see a list of the books with the ISBNs and publishers' information.

Call or e-mail me if you would like to talk about scheduling, ordering books, my presentation, or my fee. Thanks.