Annual EMLT event returns with guest speaker Jordan Sonnenblick
By Lynda Feustel
After a one-year hiatus, the Elementary, Middle Level, Library & Technologies Education (EMLT) department brought back the popular community-building event, Teen Library Day. On Friday Nov. 7, local school districts were invited to bring students to Schaeffer Auditorium to hear popular author Jordan Sonnenblick speak and participate in a meet-and-greet.
Photo Credit: Lynda Feustel
The local school districts arrived between 9:30 and 10 a.m., filling Schaeffer Auditorium. Several faculty members from EMLT and current KU students also attended to help run the event and hear Sonnenblick speak.
The department handed out Teen Library Day stickers and squishy bricks as students walked in, while the KU campus store also had a table set up with Sonnenblick’s books available for purchase.
Opening remarks were delivered at 10 a.m. by Dr. Bruns, dean of the College of Education, who welcomed attendees to KU. Graduate assistant Sam Shourds, who led most of the event’s organization, introduced Sonnenblick using material drawn from the frequently asked questions on his website.
Jordan Sonnenblick is an author who writes children’s and young adult books, including “Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie,” “The Boy Who Failed Show and Tell,” and “The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade.” Sonnenblick last spoke at KU in 2021 at Teen Library Day.
Photo Credit: Lynda Feustel
Rather than taking the main stage, Sonnenblick talked from the pit so he could directly see the audience. He framed his presentation around learning to be a happy grown-up. He described incidents from his own childhood and said he was only ever good at reading, writing and playing the drums. He expressed that at 33 years old, he was a middle school English teacher and had still never written a book. He learned one of his students had a little brother with cancer and tried to find a book to help her and quickly learned that it didn’t exist, so he knew that was what he had to write. That book ended up being “Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie”, and would be the first of his 13 books.
“I thought Sonnenblick was a good speaker and the kids really connected to him, which doesn’t always happen,” KU student Clem Frey said. “It’s great that he came back because he has done this event before, and there were a lot of kids in attendance, which was really nice.”
Photo Credit: Lynda Feustel
The presentation ended with a Q&A from the students, followed by a meet-and-greet with Sonnenblick, where he signed books, took photos, answered questions and read several students’ writing. Following the meet and greet, the schools went on tours of the campus led by KU library science students.
“When you’re reading a book for school, it’s good for teachers to come together with a program like this and let the kids hear an author talk,” Frey said. “It’s a cool opportunity for the kids to get impassioned about reading and to get excited about KU through events and tours and I think it’s just a good opportunity all around.”