PRESENTATION SPACE REQUIREMENT
From large concert halls to one-room school houses, we have presented our programs in a variety of venues, however, one very important requirement is that we need to conduct our programs in a space which can be significantly darkened. We use projected video slideshow media to visually share with our audiences how we create our art and books. We depend upon this primary feature within all of our programming.
GENERAL PROGRAM INFORMATION
We present together and offer up to 4-Forty-Five Minute Sessions per day.
Our programs are presented in a theater-style format which can be set up in any space appropriate for a quality video and audio performance. All of our programming, as well as our professional presentation equipment is conducive for large or small audiences.
The following recommended program formats are based upon typical Elementary School grade levels and enrollment sizes. No matter what your enrollment, grade levels, or available presentation space might be, we are happy to offer other program format suggestions!
In any case, the following recommended formats will provide you with guidelines to assure that your students and teachers will have an optimal program experience during our visit.
We offer 4 Standard School Visit Program Options
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Daily Program Option 1 For Schools with 700 Students (or less)
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We recommend dividing your school population into 2 Groups according to age and grade level (for example, a younger group of K-2nd Graders and an older group of 3rd-5th Graders). These groupings allow for presenting specific age-appropriate programming, as well as manageable audience sizes for a high quality viewing and listening experience. Each group attends two 45-minute sessions throughout the day, providing each group with an optimal 90-minutes of quality programming.
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If you do not have a presentation space large enough for this format option, you are welcome to follow the following Daily Program Option 2 (below).
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Daily Program Option 2 For Schools with Over 700 Students
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For larger enrollment schools it is best to divide your school population into 4 Groups according to age and grade level (for example, K-1st Graders, 2nd-3rd Graders, 4th-5th Graders, & 6th Graders). This allows for presenting specific age-appropriate programming for each group, as well as manageable audience sizes for a high quality viewing and listening experience. Each group attends one 45-minute session for optimal large school programming.
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Daily Program Option 3 For Visits to 2 Schools in One Day
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This program option allows us to visit 2 neighboring schools in a day. This budget sensitive choice makes our appearances more affordable, as both schools share the total costs for our visit. When visiting 2 schools in a day, we are happy to conduct up to two 45- minute Large Group Assemblies at each school, however, this is dependent upon the traveling distance between schools, as well as our required equipment tear-down & set-up times necessary for each school location.
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Multiple-Day Program Option 4
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We are available for multiple day visits at one school, as well as district-wide visits at multiple schools (multiple-day visits must be consecutive days during a school week).
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For Multi-Day visits at a single school:
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We offer special extended programming—or the opportunity to meet with smaller size
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groups based on the daily formats described above.
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For Multi-Day visits at multiple schools within the same district:
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We are happy to provide any combination of our daily formats described above.
We provide every school we visit with our:
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Appearance Agreement
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Our Appearance Agreement is clear and concise in covering all details—providing you the professional assurance of having us as your guests.
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Visit Planning Packet
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Our Visit Planning Packet provides helpful instructions & suggestions for planning our presentation schedule, presentation space, equipment needs and other important details.
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Autographed Books & Other Fun Stuff!
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To assist you in promoting the event, we include an autographed complimentary set of our books. We also include a sheet of autographed bookmarks along with an appearance flyer for you to copy and use. For schools & organizations who wish to conduct a book sale with our visit, we also provide complete easy to follow book sale ordering & autographing instructions (see below).
Our home studio is in Columbus, Ohio (USA)
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For appearances within our driving region (generally within a 500 mile radius of Central Ohio), we provide our own state of the art audio & video presentation equipment. Our professional sound system and video projection equipment will provide a high quality audio and video experience for up to 700 audience members (providing your room is conducive to our Presentation Space Requirements).
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For appearances outside our driving region we require the use of a sound-system, LCD projector, projection screen and other basic equipment needed for a quality audio and projected video slideshow presentation (our equipment list is provided in our Visit Planning Packet).
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BOOK SALES & AUTOGRAPHING
Offering our books for sale along with our visit is completely at your option. Our priority in visiting your school is to support, inspire, and encourage a life-long celebration of reading, creativity and the arts (not to sell books)—however, most schools and organizations who host our appearances do desire to make our books available to their excited and eager young readers anticipating our visit!
If you choose to conduct a book sale along with our visit, we supply our books to you directly. There are no publishers to deal with, no third party book suppliers—just us! We handle your orders personally and supply our books to you with no processing fees, no shipping or delivery charges—and we guarantee that every single book ordered through us will be autographed and personalized to the name(s) to whom the purchaser requests!
Purchasing children’s books directly from the people who create them is of tremendous support to authors and artists such as ourselves—and your support is deeply appreciated! In our commitment to supporting literacy, it’s important to us to make our books as affordable as we can to all communities we visit. We are pleased to offer all of our books at substantial discounts—along with purchasing options in both paperback and hardcover editions for nearly all of our titles! If you wish to conduct a book sale along with our visit, you may pass these discounts along to your book purchasers—or you may sell our books up to the retail prices and utilize the proceeds as a fundraiser for your school or organization. These options are completely up to you.
We make ordering our books extremely easy—we know how busy you are, and it’s important to us to provide you with everything you need to make coordinating a school book sale a simple and pleasurable experience. Our Visit Planning Packet includes complete easy to follow book sale and ordering instructions, a clearly detailed Book Sale Agreement—and even our official Book Ordering & Autographing Form already made up for you to simply copy and distribute!
COSTS & CONTACT INFORMATION
Our Honorarium is $1,500 per day, plus expenses.
Where applicable, expenses typically require:
Lodging, Mileage (50¢ per mile, if using our own transportation), Meals on the day of our appearance, and Airfare (for appearances outside of our driving region).
For Events outside the state of Ohio, we typically request a 2-day minimum commitment.
(This commitment can be met by hosting us 2 or more consecutive days at one school—or 2 or more consecutive days at different schools with any combination of our Daily Program Options)
We are happy to answer any questions or to provide you with additional information about us, our books and our programs!
Please contact us at:
Phone: 614-449-9494
A SPECIAL NOTE
With heartfelt appreciation to all schools, libraries & organizations who invite notable authors and illustrators to share their work—and with deepest respect for children everywhere,
we recommend that you request recent references from anyone you are considering inviting for your special event. It is an honor to share our work with you—and you deserve the assurance your students and community will receive a warm, friendly, and quality program experience!
We are proud to provide you with multiple referrals from our most recent appearances.
