Award-winning New England authors Rich Wallace and Sandra Neil Wallace offer entertaining and informative presentations for elementary and middle-school school children.
Rich has written a wide range of books for children and teenagers, including the popular Winning Season and Kickers sports series. He served as a senior editor at Highlights for Children and is the author of two popular ongoing features in that magazine: “The Timbertoes” and the new sports series “Game On!” The American Library Association named his teen novel Wrestling Sturbridge one of the top YA books of the 20th century.
Sandra is the author of the widely acclaimed middle-grade novel Little Joe and the forthcoming historical novel Muckers. The Horn Book magazine cited Sandra as “a talented newcomer in the field of children’s literature.” She had a lengthy career as a TV sportscaster with ESPN and has been published in many magazines, including Cobblestone and Highlights for Children. Visit her website at www.sandraneilwallace.com.
VISITING YOUR SCHOOL
Our material is always changing to include new experiences that come with each published book.
Our books cover such topics as sports, animals, and history, so we’re able to provide quite a range of material for students in kindergarten through 8th grade.
Typically we conduct up to four presentations in a day, usually with groups of up to 50. Each session runs about 45 minutes, followed by time for questions. For grades K-1, we keep it a bit shorter. We especially enjoy it if one of the presentations is a Q&A lunch with a select group of contest winners.
“Because of their range of titles and experience, Rich and Sandra were able to captivate their audiences from grades K-8. The students are excited to read more of their books — we had reserve lists on all of their titles in the library the day after their visit. Two authors for the price of one – What a bargain!”
– Jessica Klinker, Immaculate Conception School, Columbus, OH
Audience size
Any size audience is fine with us, as long as the students can hear us, see our visual aids, and have the opportunity to ask questions freely. We shy away from being in an auditorium with the entire school present. We also find kindergarten sessions work best with 40 or fewer students in a cozy setting like the library, so we can all share stories.
“The students especially enjoyed learning about the process of writing a book. They were amazed at the amount of time and research involved.”
– Eva M. Roeder, Media Center Director, Wheelock School, Keene, NH
PRESENTATIONS
Grades K-1
Rich focuses on his emergent reader soccer series KICKERS, reading a short excerpt from the first book and posing questions about team play and having fun. Sandra talks about farm life and introduces some of the real-life animals who inspired the fictional characters in her farm novel LITTLE JOE.
Grades 2-3, 4-5
Rich shares his childhood sports experiences and how his imaginative participation in athletics led to his many novels and stories. He reads excerpts from the books inspired by his childhood—which could be a ghost story around the campfire in SPORTS CAMP, or an exciting sports passage from THE WINNING SEASON.
Sandra discusses farm life and the research that goes into writing realistic fiction. Using visual aids that show farm animals and reading passages from LITTLE JOE, Sandra introduces the relationship 4-H kids like Eli have with their animals. All students receive blue ribbons, just like Eli won.
Older audiences
Sandra focuses on her work as a journalist and sports announcer with ESPN, sharing insights into the famous athletes she’s interviewed, and how she became the first woman to host a hockey show on TV. Rich discusses his many novels for teenagers and the process of drawing on his own experiences and turning them into fiction.
Book sales and autographs
We are happy to sign books for educators and students during our visit. If a table is set up to do this, all the better. We keep our postcards handy, which can be signed for students who do not purchase books. Ordering from your local bookstore is always wonderful, but you can also order books through our publishers at a special school discount.
For additional information on our presentations (including fees), teachers, librarians, and other educators can email us at rwallacebooks@gmail.com.