Children’s book illustrator meets with high school writers

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Keera Frye in Features // 0 Comments

After entertaining the young students at Southmoreland Primary Center (SPC) with a presentation in which he painted what the kids shouted out at him, children’s book illustrator John Manders gave another fascinating and very helpful presentation to high school students.

High school reading buddies planning to help write and illustrate the third children’s book published by the club got to meet with Manders at SPC for a private question and answer session last week. The reading buddies coordinator at SPC, Mrs. Patty Debiasio, thought it would be beneficial for them, so she scheduled this meeting for the reading buddies.

“It was so cool to meet with him and get to see how he goes through the process,” said sophomore Olivia Price.

Manders shared the numerous stages that he goes through before arriving at the final product that becomes the children’s book. Students got to look at manuscripts with Manders’ rough sketches, small skit like drawings and paintings of what Manders envisioned for the book, and his final portraits for the book.

Mrs. Jenna Hixson, who leads this club in the production of the book, was very excited that Manders’ agreed to meet with them because she thinks that his expertise will help them to enhance the quality of this book. After meeting with Manders, Mrs. Hixson and her students became even more excited to start their book with his techniques in mind.

“The more I read, the more excited I get about writing,” said Mrs. Hixson. “I think that talking to him and seeing some of his illustrations had that same effect on the students and made them more excited about creating our book.”