C1

By Madeleine Leclerc

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

There's A Mouse In My House. Toes In My Nose. There Were Monkeys In My Kitchen. Sleeping Dragons All Around. One More Step. If I Were The Moon. If You Could Wear My Sneakers.

1 of 4

You may wonder what these titles all mean. Ask any child, and he or she will quickly answer that they are titles to some of the books they love the most, all written by award-winning and much-published children's author Sheree Fitch of Halifax.

Students of the John Caldwell Elementary School met Fitch on Monday, April 28. During her visit, Fitch, author, poet and literary activist, answered questions from the students in between entertaining them with some of her most well-known poems. She also invited the students and their teachers to follow along with her famous tongue-twisters.

"I believe that everybody can write if they want to. I encourage you to stay wide awake of what surrounds you and dream a lot," she said when answering one student's question pertaining to who can write a poem or a story.

Fitch related a poem which she put together from something her son said to her one day. "After I wrote the poem, my son asked me if everything he said would end up in a poem. I told him yes."

"You get your ideas from everywhere," she added. "Poems are stories. My favourite book is the one I will write tomorrow. I like to write poems because of the music of the language."

Asked if she had a favourite book, Fitch replied she had several but she was especially proud of "If You Could Wear My Sneakers", a book on children's rights. "I was asked to write it by UNICEF. Children have a right to live in the world without war," she said.

Stories to tell

"When I was in grade 2, my teacher asked our class to write a poem. I sat and tried very hard. I wrote my first poem at seven years old. It was a tongue-twister poem. I put it in the school fair in the gym. People read my poem and they smiled! That's when I realized that something I wrote could make someone happy. I told my teacher I would grow up and write poems which made people happy."

"My first book, Toes In My Nose, was launched in 1987. My grade 2 teacher, Mrs. Goodwin, came to the book signing and she had three poems of mine that she had kept from her class. It's because of a teacher like her that I like to write poems which are funny and make people happy. We all have stories to tell."

Fitch spoke of her persistance with publishing houses and after receiving many ‘no's for 10 years, at the age of 29, she was one day told that her book would be published.

"When the publishing house called me, I thought it was my best friend who was playing a joke on me. I didn't believe it! I was so excited!"

Before concluding her presentation, Fitch took one last question from a grade 5 student who asked how old she was. Her answer led to much laughter. "I'm 51 but I'm married, so I can't wait for you."