Celebratory Walk for Fox Meadow School, Author Visits Greenacres

Over 400 students along with teachers and administrators took a celebratory walk from Greenacres Elementary School to Fox Meadow Elementary School on Thursday November 8 to commemorate the opening of Fox Meadow School 90 years ago.

The excited kids were bussed from Fox Meadow to Greenacres where they were greeted by police, fire trucks and Foxy the Fox. They lined up by class on the blacktop at Greenacres before forming a big line to walk down Brewster Road and commemorate the walk the students made 90 years ago for the opening of Fox Meadow School.

Dan Gutman, Author of My Weird School Visits Greenacres
Dan Gutman On Thursday, November 8th some lucky Greenacres students won a lottery to have lunch with visiting author, Dan Gutman. Mr. Gutman, a resident of New York City, is the author of the extremely popular My Weird School series. In addition, he has also penned several books on topics such as famous athletes, the electoral process, and a machine that does homework (the last being fiction).

While munching with his third, fourth and fifth grade lunch mates last week, Mr. Gutman discussed with them their futures, their teachers, and, of course, the weirdest thing to happen at Greenacres (a police incident was cited). Fifth grader Ella Hurwitz said, “Lunch was fantastic…he was really funny.” Charlie Im, a third grader, said, “I think it’s really interesting to hear how books are written. Maybe I’ll write one one day.”

Mr. Gutman loves writing for children, and values the opportunity to meet face to face with his audience. In addition to the lunch with about a dozen students, he also met with each of the upper grades and also spoke at a school assembly. He shared with his young audience how being an author was not always so easy (such as receiving 20 rejections for one book) as well as what it’s like when you get your rhythm (it takes about a month for him to write a book in the My Weird School series).

While he’s had to say farewell to some of his beloved creations (Rappy the Raptor, a picture book series, is now sadly gone into extinction) he also sees new avenues for opportunity, such as ebooks and other media, on the horizon.