I remember going for countless school visits when my first book, Jeanette Aw: Definitions, was published. It was fun! I enjoyed the time with the students, sharing on my journey of writing and how it all started for me. That book topped the bestseller charts and is now completely sold out.
Fast forward a couple of years later. Another published book appeared, Sol’s World: Somebody to Love. This time, illustrated, with a story based on Sol’s journey, with Jeanette Aw fading into the background as artist and author. However, my schedule did not allow for any school visits/talks and after 2 years since the book’s launch, Mayflower Primary School was to be the very first one.
“Somebody to Love” received overwhelming support when it was published, it also topped the list. I can’t even begin to say how very grateful I am. Yes, there are plans to eventually come up with a series of books and I’ll be very happy to share that news when the time comes. In any case, extra prints for “Somebody to Love” were made to make school visits possible.
Back to Mayflower Primary School. I kind of forgot how it was to actually spend a session with children this age and it was truly enjoyable. I hope I was able to share with them the joy I experience while reading, writing and drawing. I believe creativity resides in every single unique body, we just express it differently.
My favourite part of the visit was when I got to meet every individual student when they came up to buy my book. Some ran to the desk once their recess bell rang, some chatted with me, some were so shy they needed friends to be with them and I could hardly hear their voices. They bought me a milo drink, I had pencils and paper clips as gifts, some came prepared with my dvd set to autograph on top of the book they bought, and the notes they wrote to me piled up and it took me half a day to finish reading all of it.
Not too long ago, a second batch of books were delivered, because more orders came in. All I want to say is, thank you all so much! The publishing of books and all other personal projects that I have taken on so far are all, well.. personal. So, it’s a true Jeanette Aw project with no big companies behind me. Thankful to the teachers who actually thought to reach out to me through social media, I think it’s amazing to get connected in such a way.
In any case, there is another school who got in touch, we’ll see how the schedule looks and I’m looking forward to more of this in future!
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