Julie Berry – Adventures with Books
Tuesday, March 16,  9:00am – 10:00am

Where do ideas come from? What six things does every story need? What does “Star Wars” teach about storytelling? Julie Berry provides a nuts-to-bolts program about what it means to be an author, the process of writing, and getting published. She touches on her upbringing and her favorite books at different stages of her life, and how those books shaped her into an author as an adult. In “Adventures with Books” Julie will walk students through the journey of starting out to write, overcoming the creative roadblocks we all face, and finding ways to tap into creativity and see it through to a finished, revised, publication-worthy end. She will talk about where ideas come from, how to brainstorm, and how to start. Best of all, she teaches kids a lesson on story structure, character, motivation, and plot that uses Star Wars as its textbook. With humor, lots of pop culture references, and questions and answers throughout, Julie engages the students and is as passionate about reading as she is about writing.

Julie Berry is the author of the 2020 NCTE Amelia Walden Award and SCBWI Golden Kite Award winner Lovely War. She is also the author of the 2017 Printz Honor and Los Angeles Times Book Prize shortlisted The Passion of Dolssa, the Carnegie and Edgar shortlisted All the Truth That’s in Me, the Odyssey Honor The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, and many others. Her first three picture books, Long Ago, on a Silent Night; Don’t Let the Beasties Escape This Book; and Happy Right Now, released in 2019. Her newest middle grade fantasy adventure novel, Wishes and Wellingtons, was recently released from Sourcebooks. Julie is a board member of the California School Library Foundation. She holds a BS from Rensselaer in communication and an MFA in creative writing for children and young adults from Vermont College. To learn more about Julie and her work, visit her website at https://www.julieberrybooks.com/.

This CAS program is sponsored by the Bigelow PTO thanks to your contributions!