Author Janan Cain Visits Mark DeLay School in Darien

“Authistrator” = Author + Illustrator
(Janan Cain, 2018)

On April 26th, acclaimed author Janan Cain visited Mark DeLay School in Darien, Illinois to tell students what it is like to be an author and illustrator. She has published 3 picture books, and The Way I Feel has been translated into 7 different languages. In fact, it has sold over two million copies! Her books have been granted numerous literary awards, including First Place for Publishers Association’s Book Design Competition, finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s “Book of the Year” contest and finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award - Best Children’s Picture Book.

To prepare students for the author visit, students read a variety of books about “feelings” during our library classes. Some of the books we read were, The Invisible Boy (by Trudy Ludwig and Patrice Barton) and The Feelings Book (by Todd Parr). Students also learned about different literary genres and discovered some background information about the author including her writing and illustrating career. Another part of our author preparation was to practice appropriate behavior for an author visit and preparing thoughtful questions to ask the author.

“I wanted every page to look like an emotion.”
(Janan Cain, 2018)

Students attended assemblies where Cain read her book, The Way I Feel. “Silly is the way I feel when I make a funny face/ and wear a goofy, poofy hat that takes up lots of space” (The Way I Feel, 2000). This picture book describes a variety of feelings in rhyming and rhythmic verse. Cain’s illustrations emote feelings by using color, shapes, and movement. Cain was inspired to write this book because she wanted to teach her own children about feelings and was unable to find picture books to meet that need. While writing and illustrating the book, Cain even used her daughters as models to draw the book cover and to pose for some of the paintings.

“It was frustrating illustrating the book but I didn’t give up.”
(Janan Cain, 2018)

As part of her presentation, Cain explained different design elements which can help students become better illustrators. Sharp pointy shapes can show frustration, droopy shapes can make you feel sad, and different font styles can also make you feel a certain way.

A popular question that the students asked her was, “How long have you been writing?” “I’ve loved to draw since I was little,” Cain explained to students. She said that she had been writing and illustrating for over 30 years. Students also wondered how long it took her to write her books. Cain said that it took about one year to write and illustrate, The Way I Feel. Cain published two other picture books, The Way I Act, and Lost and Alone.

If you want to read more about Cain and her books, please look up her webpage:

https://www.janancain.com/

Students decorated paper plates with different emotions as part of the author visit festivities. The author generously donated 15 of her books to use as prizes for the emotion drawing contest. The winning students were delighted to receive a signed copy of her book, The Way I Feel.

Students and teachers were excited to learn that Janan Cain went to school in our district when she was growing up! She attended Lace Elementary School and Eisenhower Junior High School, and we are proud that she is a graduate of Darien School District #61 schools.

When Cain was finished with six presentations in the gym, she gladly agreed to work on creating two different videos that will be used in future library projects. The first video was of Cain reading her book, The Way I Feel. The second video we made was of Cain showing students how to draw emotions on three different faces using the same drawing elements that she explained to students during the assemblies. If you would like to view the two videos, they are on the library webpage:

https://www.darien61.org/Page/4236

As a wrap up for the visiting author unit, students wrote thank you letters and designed pictures of faces showing different emotions and then sent them to Cain. In addition, several copies of her books are housed in our collection so students can check them out and read them at home.

Finally, the importance of hosting authors is extremely valuable to our school library program. Thanks to the generosity of the PTA, we can bring new and exciting authors in every year! Reading for pleasure, reading for information, inspiring future authors, providing positive role models -- these all lead to the promotion of reading and writing.