As part of their curriculum for Project Success, a school-year-long service leadership class for seniors taught by Rebekah Esau at Putnam County High School, students conceived of, organized and presented the Live and Drive Book Fair Mar. 10, at Georgia Writers Museum (GWM) in downtown Eatonton.
“Through this class, we promote leadership and community involvement. We try to promote school spirit in our own school, but then we also partner with all the schools in our district, and we have a relationship with pretty much every non-profit in town,” Esau said. “We are developing service leaders, students who understand the importance of selflessness, giving back, humility, collaboration and communication.”
Esau explained when the class starts in the fall, students pitch ideas for a beneficial community project and then brainstorm various options before voting on which they feel most confident about completing.
“So, this year they voted on having a living book fair because they all had this sort of fond memory of the book fair in the schools and they wanted to bring that to life,” Esau said. “They also chose to work with the fifth-grade Trailblazers, who they had been mentoring already.”
The living book fair involved bringing 14 children’s books “to life” as PCHS and PCES students donned costumes related to each featured book and hosted an interactive event for several dozen second-grade students.
Esau said her class had been preparing for the Live and Drive Book Fair for about 10 weeks, visiting the elementary school each week to interact with the fifth graders while learning about the books to be featured, as well as about the individual authors.
“They talked about the morals of the stories; they designed the tablescapes; they designed or wrote the script about what they would say. They did tons of paperwork, sent emails, and did all the ordering for materials," Esau stated with obvious pride in the results. "They worked with the Writers Museum. My students did all the heavy lifting.
“I'm always pleased as they learn so much about themselves as collaborators and leaders through this process. They see the value that they have in nurturing a younger group as they learn about themselves," she added. "So yeah, it’s a really positive experience for everyone.”
Amidst throngs of second graders from Putnam County Primary School spread out all across the GWM meeting room floor, Atlanta-based author Jerry G. White gave a spirited presentation on his book, Anansi and the colorful kente cloth, the story of a spider and its friends, based on traditional West African folk tales.
A professional drummer himself, White directly involved many of the PCES students by giving them drums and other percussion instruments to play on cue, while others had puppets to represent his book’s characters, and still, others held a large flowing, blue cloth they waved to replicate water.
Meanwhile, he was fully costumed as his narrator and protagonist, Anansi the spider, and performed the role with humorous gusto.
White said he’d often toyed with the idea of writing a children’s book and when the pandemic came in 2020, he seized the opportunity to finally make it happen.
“I’m a real Georgia writer now,” White declared of his visit to GWM. “Once I realized what this program was about for getting kids to come to the Georgia Writers Museum so they could understand or have really good knowledge about Georgia writers, it just felt right,” he continued. “And now that I'm here, it’s perfect, because as I said, I was able to bring the book, get them on their feet, and have fun. Because I would say my mantra is, ‘Bring the words to life.’”
Following White’s lively performance, 14-year-old Alex Huynh, an eighth-grade student at The Paideia School in Atlanta, spoke on her first published book, From Tears to the Sea, a rhyming book for young children in which she also created the colorful artwork.
With her talk, Huynh became the youngest author ever to officially present at a Georgia Writers Museum event, GWM Executive Director Melissa Swindell confirmed.
Alex said her book was born of Covid times, too.
She described starting the writing process about three years ago after a poem she wrote about water won a contest.
“I had a lot of free time over the summer. All the classes were canceled from school because of the Coronavirus, so I needed a project to work on, so I started making collages to go along with my poem,” the young author explained. “It was mostly over the summer, just a fun project. We never thought it was going to become an actual book, but then we decided to self-publish starting on Amazon online.”
The experience she’s gained has been valuable, if not always enjoyable, Alex admitted.
“It's been kind of adventurous. I mean, this book led me here into a lot of bookstores and awkward presentations,” she said. “I've definitely learned you have to be resilient. A lot of people might say no to your book, or you might be sitting out on a stand for five hours in the cold trying to sell it, and after maybe four hours you'll get two books sold. But it's been really fun, too. You get to meet a lot of other authors and maybe learn something or identify with their experiences.”
At the event’s conclusion, Swindell opened the GWM bookstore to each and every student present, from primary to high school, inviting them to choose any book they’d like to take home, free of charge.
“The whole community came together. I mean, from Putnam County admin faculty to teachers to local community supporters, all donated across Putnam County and into Greene County to make sure that when they left today, each kid had a book in their hands that they were interested in reading,” Swindell said. “And these are our current offerings. We really wanted to make sure the books are current, relevant and engaging for the students in each level.”