Reading and Ask the Author Assembly (30 minutes)
After reading one of my picture books I do a question and answer session. Although I take questions throughout the day, one of the advantages of doing a Q & A in assembly at the beginning of the day is that it allows me to address some of the more oft-repeated questions, such as “Where do you get your ideas from?”, in front of everyone, leaving me free to answer more specific questions, such as “Where did you get the idea for a particular book?” later in the day.
These sessions always work best when the children have thought about their questions in advance and can be further improved by the children writing their questions on my Ask the Author sheets, which you can download here. If you use the sheets, then 20 or so questions can be selected by the school in advance and stuck up on a notice board for me to choose from. This allows teachers a degree of editorial control over the questions asked and allows me to select the questions that I know will have the most interesting or entertaining answers.
As well as the child’s name, the Ask the Author sheet has a space for the child to draw a self-portrait.