Bruce Hale, nationally acclaimed children’s author and illustrator, enthralled Brown Door students on February 7th. For several months, students had been reading his humorous series of Chet Gecko detective books, deciphering his plentiful puns and wordplay, finding literary devices such as similes and metaphors in his colorful writing, and researching information about him on the Internet.
During his morning visit, Bruce captivated the students with his comic impersonations and general theatrics (he is also an actor and singer)—all the while getting across important points. Drawing from his own childhood, he extolled the importance of imagination, and of following your dreams. Bruce showed how those dreams, such as being an author, can come true with practice, persistence, and a willingness to overcome distractions and challenges which inevitably get in the way. In a one man show, Hale recreated hilarious scenes of the day he was driving home from a boring job to find a gecko obstinately clinging to his car window—a trip which inspired him to write his first published book about Moki the Gecko. He then read (or rather performed) the first chapter of The Malted Falcon (one of the Chet Gecko titles). Ending his presentation with questions from the students, he took the opportunity when asked about writer’s block to impersonate the two halves of the brain (Monsieur “L’artiste” and Mr. Editor) and to urge students to let the artist-half create freely before bringing in the editor-half to make corrections.
Brown Door students were clearly inspired by this very approachable author and illustrator who used humor to get across important messages about reading and writing, creativity and imagination, passion and perseverance. He’ll be back on February 15th to write an original story with our students…and they can hardly wait.
For more photos from Bruce's visit click here.
