Center for Teaching & Learning

12/8/23  - Peter Brown Author Visit

Hello, CTL People, 

We’ve had a great week here at our school on the hill, starting with our first measurable snow and Peter Brown’s visit on the same Monday morning! 

Peter Brown is a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator, familiar to readers of The Curious Garden, Fred Gets Dressed, Creepy Carrots!, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, The Wild Robot, and other titles. His books have earned numerous honors, including a Caldecott Honor, a Horn Book Award, two E.B. White Awards, two E.B. White Honors, a Children’s Choice Award for Illustrator of the Year, two Irma Black Honors, a Golden Kite Award, and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award.

Peter Brown was compelling; he gave the students a behind-the-scenes look at his process for writing The Wild Robot: sketching, story mapping, drafting, working with feedback from editors, and polishing cover art. He explained that it helps him to break larger projects down into more manageable tasks, consider his audience, and use digital tools like Photoshop. Brown concluded his presentation with a sketching demonstration. We’ll frame and display this one-of-a-kind piece of art; we’ll let the community know once it is hung and you can come check it out. Here’s a preview.

Peter explained that he has always loved drawing and telling stories. As a child, he drew farm animals and his own pets. In high school, he checked out books about drawing and illustration from the library. He told the students that, while studying illustration in college, Peter took several courses on children’s books and fell in love with children's literature. Today, his own books sit on bookshelves next to those written by his favorite children's book authors.

The students were held in rapt attention as Peter talked about his writing process and showed pictures of his sketchbook and writing planning pages. Throughout this week, we’ve seen inspired kids writing their own fan fiction, such as The Wild Robot Builds Houses, The Wild Robot Makes Friends, and many other little books about a wide variety of adventurous topics. Peter’s focus on planning and revision for both writing and illustrating dovetailed very well with the way CTL kids and teachers think about process. It made a deep impression on all of us; I continue to hear kids and faculty talking about certain slides he showed us or snippets that he said. 

Peter Brown told the students that, although he loved to draw and read as a kid, he never really realized that writing and illustrating books could be a job until he was in college. We’re so lucky at CTL to see ourselves as authors right now, all of us, from ages 5 to 75. I believe it is very productive for students to see a wide range of adult occupations (as my regular readers will remember) but I particularly loved seeing the kids interacting with someone who makes a joyful living doing something that the students do already each day. 

Thanks again to Corbin for reaching out to Peter and getting him interested in this school of readers and writers! The local paper ran an article about his visit, which you can find here. 

Enjoy this weekend! Stay dry and cozy. 

Love to you all,
Katy