Renowned author visits Merrick's Birch School

Renowned author Alyssa Satin Capucilli visited students at Birch School on Jan. 25 as part of the school’s Diving into Reading PARP program last month.

Capucilli penned Ready to Read books such as “The World of Biscuit” and the “My First…” series.

Relying on personal experiences, Capucilli said the Biscuit books were born after her, now adult, daughter asked to watch a neighbor’s dog. She started receiving letters from children who expressed that Biscuit was the first book they could read on their own.

“They requested longer and more challenging Biscuit stories, resulting in the ‘Biscuit & Friends’ series,” she noted.

Capucilli explained to students during three grade-level assemblies how books are written, illustrated, and published.

“I use my five senses to learn about the world around me and then I am ready to go home and write,” she explained. “Something I see might just be the detail I was looking for in a story. Something I hear might just be the perfect word sound to accent a page.”

Her process begins with a writer’s journal, brainstorming ideas and making lists.

“I might cross things out or check things off, but I never erase because that would be erasing a potential idea,” she explained.

Reading aloud, grammar and spelling are also part of the process ahead of submitting a story to her editor for suggestions.

“I then go back and tuck in details and I stretch my story,” she added.

Then the words go to the illustrator, who sketches for a long time to create various versions of scenes that may or may not end up in the story.

“The book is then sent off to a publisher, where it is printed onto one giant sheet of paper from a machine,” Capucilli further explained.

They are sewn together to create seams and finally cardboard is glued in for a front back and spine of hard and soft covers.

“It takes two to three years for me to bring a book to you,” she noted to students.

In the weeks leading up to her visit, students were introduced to Capucilli’s works during their library classes. 

School librarian Vanessa Schroeder read Capucilli’s books, “The Library Fish” and “The Library Fish Learns to Read” because they were ‘the perfect companions to our PARP theme.’

“Second graders also developed questions that they wanted to ask Capucilli during her presentations,” she added. “The children were very excited to meet the author of the well known and loved Biscuit series and learn about how she comes up with her ideas for writing. It was incredibly interesting to see how a book is bound and to talk about just how long it takes to bring a book to life.”

The Birch PTA jointly sponsored the PARP program, bringing various programs and activities that promote literacy to students.