Authors in the Schools (AIS) is an exciting and innovative literacy program developed by the Near South Planning Board to enrich the curriculum in Chicago’s elementary schools.  Its mission is to bring the joy of reading and creative writing to students in the city’s inner-city schools.

Started in 1997, the program began by sending six Illinois children’s authors into six schools to share their books with a total of 600 students. The program has since grown to serving well over 20,000 students in schools throughout the city of Chicago since its inception.  It also expanded into a 6th grade, 2-day writing program and a new 3rd grade Spanish workshop for select schools.

Near South Planning Board is gearing up for the 2020-2021 AIS program. AIS will enter its twenty-second year with the same goals and dedication. Please consider becoming an “Angel” to a school or provide a corporate contact for our staff to pursue.

The AIS Program has two parts—a one-day workshop for third graders and a two-day workshop for sixth graders.

These schools receive a visit from a respected and published Illinois children’s author who is experienced in elementary classroom and workshop situations.

The Near South Planning Board sends the featured author’s book to the selected school in advance. This way, teachers can familiarize students with the author’s work. The NSPB also sends background information about the author, plus suggestions for incorporating the author’s visit in the curriculum.

THIRD GRADE PROGRAM: On the day of the visit, the authors meet with each individual third grade classroom and lead an engaging presentation.  The workshops are organized to give the students time to share their writing aloud and at the end of the workshop, each student receives an autographed copy of one of the author’s books to take home. 

SIXTH GRADE PROGRAM: The author partakes in a more intensive two-day writing workshop.  Teachers are asked to prepare the students on the concepts of main character, setting and plot.  Our veteran author then spends an hour and a half in each sixth-grade classroom for two days writing a “first chapter” with the students. Our author goes beyond teaching main character, setting and plot.  She introduces them to – D.N.A. (Dialogue, Narrative, and Action).  The second day enforces these concepts and then the students learn to incorporate lighting, sound and color (details/ description) into a story.  Students are given a homework assignment – to finish the story – and return the next day to give oral presentations and tweak their work by including more descriptive words.  Sixth graders also receive an autographed copy of the authors’ book..

Near South Planning Board typically commits to a school for at least three years.

Black Magnet School North River Elementary
Bridgeport Catholic Academy Nixon Elementary
Burroughs Elementary Revere Elementary
Drake Elementary Pershing Magnet School
DuBois Elementary Sabin Elementary
George Washington Elementary Smyser Elementary
Haines Elementary Stowe Elementary
McAuliffe Elementary South Loop Elementary
National Teachers Academy Wildwood Elementary

As a sponsor of Authors in the Schools, your contribution pays for a published children’s author to conduct one-on-one writing workshops in individual classrooms and books for each child.

Sponsorship Benefits:

  • Your organization’s name will be affixed on a label on the autographed book each child receives on the day of the author’s visit.
  • Materials sent to school officials and letters sent home to parents that explain the Authors in the Schools program will mention your organization’s name.
  • Brochures from your organization will be accepted to distribute on the day of the author’s visit.
  • A representative from your organization is encouraged to be present on the day of the Authors in the Schools visit but is not required.

Contact us to learn more about becoming a sponsor.

Sponsors

draper
ant
Lake Meadows
MR Bauer

Participating Authors

Award-winning author and teacher, Jim Aylesworth, enjoys visiting schools and he has many valuable lessons for young and old alike about the importance of courage, dedication and perseverance. His stories are filled with generous doses of loud sounds, rhythms and rhymes, which his 25 years as a first grade teacher have taught are the elements children like in a story. He can relate the experience of being an author as only a veteran teacher can, and he inspires groups large and small to include more reading and writing in their lives.

Marlene Targ Brill began writing while teaching children with disabilities, producing materials to help her students learn. With time, the desire to write grew stronger. Soon she was writing for a variety of formats–magazines, internet, newspapers, videotape, and textbooks–and readers of all ages.

Today, Marlene is author of more than 70 books (mostly nonfiction and historical fiction) for children and adults. She has received several honors for writing and is included in Something about the Author (vols. 77 and 124) and Contemporary Authors (vol. 97). Yet, she never forgets where her dream of writing originated–through her work with children. She is now drawn back into the classroom to share the wonders of research, writing, publishing, and of course, books.

SELECTED TITLES:

  • Picture Girl
  • Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Women Who Demanded Justice
  • Bronco Charlie and the Pony Express
  • Raising Smart Kids for Dummies
  • Tooth Tales from Around the World
  • Diary of a Drummer Boy
  • Margaret Knight: Girl Inventor
  • Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad
  • Extraordinary Young People
  • Journey for Peace: The Story of Rigoberta Menchu
  • Let Women Vote!
  • Trail of Tears: The Journey from Home
  • Women for Peace
  • Annie Shapiro and the Clothing Worker Strike
Debbi Chocolate author

I grew up in Chicago, the youngest of five children. My father was a mailman and my mother was a housewife. My grandmother danced in stage shows; my grandfather was a musician.

My mother was always fond of books. I like to think that she passed her love of books, music, and theater along to me. I learned to read when I was only three years old. By the time I was seven, when I wasn’t reading, painting, or drawing, I was busy recreating my mother’s childhood memories of the theater into my own stories. The Mary Poppins books were the most memorable reading for me back in those days.

I always knew I would do something in the arts when I grew up. When I was eight years old, my mother bought me my first oil paint set. At that time, I thought I would become a painter.

Music came later. I turned into a serious band musician by the age of thirteen and was quite accomplished before I graduated from high school. Sandwiched in between painting and music came my love of film. I was nine years old when my mother bought me an eight millimeter film projector with a limited collection of feature length and animated films. On Saturday afternoons in late autumn and early winter, when the weather was too cold for my friends and I to play outside, I’d set up folding chairs in my basement, pop popcorn, and sell tickets to my “movie theater” to all the kids in the neighborhood. Even though I showed the same films every Saturday, my friends didn’t seem to mind. They kept coming back every week. As I grew older, I found myself writing stories more often than I found myself painting, playing music, or showing movies to my friends. Now that I am a professional writer, I realize that what I had discovered was a way to put all my loves onto paper.

Before I became a writer, I worked as an editor of children’s books. As an editor, I read so many books that I found it easy to sit down and create my own storybook. The first book I wrote was published right away. The publisher said they had been looking for a book just like the one I’d written. I felt very lucky.

I still get my ideas from other books, movies, paintings, music, and the theater. The children I meet and my own two little boys often provide the foundation for an interesting character. My purpose is always the same: I write to entertain. And, more often than not, I write to share my vision of life’s hope, its beauty and its promise.

What do I like most about being a writer? Meeting children who love to read, and who have enjoyed reading the books that I have written. For those who want to be writers, my advice is to keep reading. Reading is what makes a writer.

Chicago author

A native Chicagoan, Judy Fradin graduated from Peterson Elementary School and then attended Von Steuben High School. After earning a B.A. from Northwestern University, she taught English at Marshall High School for three years.

Judy then pursued her Masters degree in English at Northeastern Illinois University, where she later taught writing courses. While raising two sons and a daughter, she taught high school and college English and History part-time. She then began acquiring pictures for her husband Dennis’s books at the Library of Congress.

In the 1990’s, Judy helped Dennis research and write a series of 52 SEA TO SHINING SEA books about the states. The Fradins then teamed up to write other books as well: WHO WAS SACAGAWEA? ; IDA B. WELLS: MOTHER OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT; FIGHT ON: MARY CHURCH TERRELL’S BATTLE FOR INTEGRATION and their most recent book, THE POWER OF ONE: DAISY BATES AND THE LITTLE ROCK NINE; and FIVE THOUSAND MILES TO FREEDOM, the Fradins’ book about the Ellen and William Craft slave escape, will be published next spring. Judy also wrote articles for FOOTSTEPS and COBBLESTONE magazines.

Judy Fradin especially enjoys speaking with young readers. This fall, she’ll be visiting schools in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan, and Minnesota as well as in Chicago, the city where she grew up. Today, Mrs. Fradin lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband Dennis and their dog, Max. She is the grandmother of Aaron (6) and Anna (1).

Nancy Gee’s journey into writing started after a flying squirrel somehow found its way into her sock drawer. Her grandsons loved having her tell and retell that story, and challenged her to write a book. That story became The Secret Drawer, which Nancy published in 2014. This was the start of a new chapter in her life, and she has since written two more books in the Secret Series, centered on the adventures of Al & Sal, two flying squirrels who have taken up residence in her garden. The Secret Path was published in 2016, and The Secret Room was release Fall 2017.

In addition to being a children’s author, Nancy is an entrepreneur, business owner and philanthropist. A graduate of Drake University, Nancy lives in the Chicago area where she owns and operates Maywood Industries, a wood fabrication company. She regularly conducts fundraisers and readings for local non-profits serving children and families in need. She is a passionate advocate for children’s literacy, and most of all, she loves sharing her books with children (and flying squirrels) of all ages.

My interest in picture books began as an elementary school teacher some fifteen years ago. That interest continues today in my work at National-Louis University in Evanston, IL where I work with teachers in an interdisciplinary graduate program. Besides writing books for children, I also publish review articles on all facts of children’s literature. But most of all, I enjoy sharing my books and publishing experiences with elementary school children.

Honors and Awards
Ezra Jack Keats Fellowship
Jane Addams Peace Association Honor Award
American Booksellers’ Pick of the List
Parent Magazine Best Books of the Year
Child Magazine Child’s Best Children’s Books
Books Reviews and Promotions….
Kirkus Reviews
Horn Book Guide
Publishers Weekly
School Library Journal
The Reading Teacher
Smithsonian
Chinaberry Books
Roots and Wings
McCracken Educational Services
Scholastic Book Fairs
San Francisco Chronicle
Detroit Free Press
School Presentations

All of my presentations are filled with elements of storytelling, puppetry, music, and lots of artifacts from my publishing experiences (i.e., galley sheets, proof sheets, dummy books, storyboards, etc.). My goal is to bring the world of publishing to life: I juggle scarves to show who’s involved in publishing a book; I play the harmonica to show the importance of rhyme and rhythm; I tell stories to explore the world of character. Students and teachers will walk away both entertained and informed.

Books by W. Nikola-Lisa

Night Is Coming (Dutton, 1991)

1, 2, 3 Thanksgiving (Albert Whitman, 1991)

Storm (Atheneum, 1993)

Bein’ With You This Way (Lee & Low, 1994)

Wheels Go Round (Doubleday, 1994)

No Babies Asleep (Atheneum, 1994)

One Hole in the Road (Henry Holt, 1996)

Tangletalk (Dutton, 1996)

Till Year’s Good End (Atheneum, 1997)

Glenette Tilley Turner author

A teacher for nearly twenty-five years, has firsthand knowledge of how children love to participate actively in learning. She knows youngsters enjoy reading about real people and presenting skits. As a child in North Carolina, and later in Florida and Illinois, she herself was intrigued with the way people met challenges, and especially liked reading biographies.

She was named Outstanding Women Educator in DuPage County, Illinois, where she lives with her husband. Recently retired, she devotes most of her time to writing. She is author of Surprise for Mrs. Burns, The Underground Railroad in DuPage County, Illinois, a biography of Lewis Latimer, and numerous articles in such publications as Scholastic Scope, Ebony, Jr!, the Chicago Tribune, Encore, and Elancee magazines. Glennette Tilley Turner is a former president of the Black Literary Umbrella and the Children’s Reading Roundtable of Chicago.

Elton C. Fax has illustrated numerous books, including his own Through Black Eyes: Journeys of a Black Artist to East Africa and Russia and West Africa Vignettes. He is the author of Contemporary Black Leaders, Seventeen Black Artists, and Garvey. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he received a BFA degree from Syracuse University. He lives in Woodside, New York.

Darwin McBeth Walton believes that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. She has been called a pathfinder in the field of education and a social activist for most of her career. She was elected Outstanding Woman Leader in the field of Racial Justice in Dupage County in 1998.

Walton brings twenty-five years of public school teaching experience to her writing for children, and is dedicated to the belief that acceptance is the first law of teaching and learning. Children who are excluded for any reason-by teachers or peers-fail to maximize their learning potential. Her landmark book, What Color Are You? published by Johnson Publishing Co., is celebrating its 30th year, was one of the first books about America’s diversity to be used in public schools. Since 1978 Walton has designed and facilitated five courses in teacher education for National-Louis University and remains in the education arena as Student Teacher Supervisor at NLU. In 2003 she was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Humanitarian Award at National.

Walton grew up during the great Depression–one of five girls–in Charlotte, North Carolina. She always loved to sing and started writing stories in grade school. She attended Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte and Howard University in Washington, D.C. while working full-time. She came to Chicago with a scholarship to study music at the Chicago Conservatory of Music where she received her Bachelor of Music Degree. Racism was covert but as prevalent as in the south. As one of three African-American women studying at the conservatory she remembers being denied non-academic experiences such as dancing or singing duets with white students or other on-stage activities critical to a professional career in classical music. It also required acceptance of the fact that she was black and there were no laws to protect her rights at that time. Much of Walton’s writing is about acceptance and inclusion in the multi-cultural and diverse society where our children are growing up today. It’s about family relationships and social challenges. Her book Overcoming Challenges is a story of Astronaut Major General Charles F. Bolden, one of the first four black astronauts in the U.S. and the challenges he faced in his quest for education during the 60’s. Her highly acclaimed, contemporary, middle-grade novel, Dance Kayla, Albert Whitman Publishers, 1998, (chosen one of the best books of 1990 by Banks street Selection Committee) tells of the courage of a young girl who-upon the sudden death of her grandmother-was uprooted from her beloved farm life in south Carolina to begin anew with a family in Chicago.

In a typical workshop, Make Your Characters Come Alive, Walton guides her students through drama, music and dance. They read, and dramatize prepared skit. They learn that writers reveal their character types through dialogue. And then they write! Tip: She always has a microphone. A portable karaoke works miracles when working with teens. Other publications include graded Pair-It books out of Steck-Vaughn Publishers: In Nana’s Kitchen; Part of My Family; Families are Special; Kwanzaa (A World of Holidays) Two new Underground Railroad books Journeys of Courage and Jetty’s Journey to Freedom