Students learn story’s end from author and illustrator
By Mary Ellen Zangara Special Writer
Weston and Roosevelt School students had a visit to their classrooms from a pair of authors last week.
Shanti Wintergate and Greg Attonito visited the schools to perform a reading of their book “I Went for a Walk,” written by Ms. Wintergate and illustrated by Mr. Attonito.
The husband and wife team from Idaho began at Roosevelt School on Wednesday with the fourth- and fifth-graders and went to Weston on Thursday to perform for the second- and third-graders.
The 45-minute program gave about 25-minutes of reading their books, two or three acoustic guitar songs with a sing a long followed by a short discussion with the students about the story they read.
They went into the classroom so the groups were smaller and they could have more contact with the students.
The authors came to New Jersey after Weston third-grade teacher Jennifer Griffiths contacted them.
”Greg is in a band called Bouncing Souls that I have been listening since I was 17,” she said. “This summer when Iwas on his Web site, I saw that him and his wife had written a book so I went to the Web site.”
She said the Web site had a link marked with the line “We want to come to your school,” which Ms. Griffiths clicked, e-mailing them a request for an appearance.
”A few weeks later, Shanti e-mailed me back,” she said. “We have been e-mailing back and forth since August. We found our that they were going to be in the area and spend a few days.”
Ms. Griffith’s contacted fellow Bouncing Souls fan and Roosevelt School teacher Greg Shannon, and he organized activities there.
Getting the two for the students, Ms. Griffiths thought it was “important for the kids to meet an author and hear that a book isn’t written all at one time and that anyone could write a book.”
”If you like writing, maybe you could be a musician or a poet,” she said.
The students at Weston really seemed to enjoy the visit from the authors, according to Ms. Griffiths, who involved the students in sing-alongs while reading the book.
Ms. Wintergate and Mr. Attonito made a video for the book’s story, and while the students saw the video, they waited for them to visit the schools to finish the story.
Mr. Attonito said he was very happy about coming to New Jersey he grew up in Basking Ridge and this gave him the chance to come back home for a few days. Ms. Wintergate is from California and the two met while in India.
”Shanti wrote this book and I did the illustrations and we are traveling around America reading our book to schools and sharing our music. It has been a great experience,” Mr. Attonito told the students.
The book was available for the students and staff to purchase and the authors even personally signed every book purchased. For more information about how to get them to your school or about their book visitthe Web site www.iwentforawalk.com.