I’m spending the week doing visits in Fort Bend ISD, Sugar Land, Texas, just outside Houston. Before coming here, the only thing I knew about Sugar Land was that it was Tom DeLay’s former constituency. Fortunately, the city has other things going for it.
Today I had a good visit with the students of Colony Meadows Elementary. I was greeted at the door by a host of Olympians, as pictured above. Can you tell who is who?
I met with 2nd through 5th grade, read from Titan’s Curse and told stories from Greek mythology. Afterward the teachers asked if I’d take a walk down the 4th grade hallway because those students were working on writing. I thought I was going to look at projects or something. I turned down the hall and found it was packed with 120 fourth graders, all looking at me! We had a nice impromptu Q&A session about writing, revising and publishing. Thanks to Carol Scott of the PTO and all the other volunteers who helped make the visit a success!
Tomorrow I’ll be visiting Sartartia Middle School. I’m told ‘sartartia’ is a Native American word for potato, because the school was built on a former potato farm. Alas, their mascot is the jaguar, not the spud. “Go, taters!” has a nice ring to it. Then it’s back home tomorrow afternoon and back to writing.
While traveling I’ve had a chance to do some reading. I just finished and enjoyed The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima. Now I’m reading a quirky but fun superhero novel called Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. So many books, so many plane trips — one upside to traveling, though it will be nice to get home!
