First school talk at St Hilda's Primary

Lesley-Anne and I are back from our speaking trip to Hong Kong but more about that later! The morning before we flew off to Hong Kong, we were actually booked for our very first school talk at St Hilda's Primary School.

To say we were jittery would be an understatement. This was our first school talk and we had to address 800 p5 & 6 kids in the school hall. Nerve-wrecking much? The bulk of the talk was sharing by Lesley-Anne on how she developed her love of writing and how she overcame personal challenges to hone her abilities.

The response was far better than we had anticipated. The kids were eagerly alert, and laughed and clapped at several points during the presentation. When we ended, instead of receiving polite applause, the kids CHEERED for us! It was the most heartening experience ever. It would have been enough to know that we don't suck as public speakers but to have such a warm response reassured us that people might actually enjoy listening to us talk. What a revelation!

We had a short break before having to give a one-hour sharing session to the GEP p4-6 students on how to write better.

This was a more interactive session. Like the talk in the hall, the kids were excited and engaged. They raised their hands and volunteered ideas. In fact, we had to shush them a few times to be heard but it's all good cos it meant that they were interested in what we were saying.

After the sessions, we went to the book sale booth set up by Closetful of Books at the canteen where we signed Danger Dan copies bought by students.

We really enjoyed our time at St Hilda's Primary and are very grateful to the SHPS teacher (we won't name her due to privacy issues) and principal for inviting us. Our very first school talk and we're very glad that it went as well as it did!

Afternote: I've gotten a couple of messages from parents asking if we will be speaking at their kids' schools. Short answer: YES! We would love to speak at your kids' schools and share our love of reading and writing. However, our book agent is the one who makes the requests at schools and schools don't always give permission, for some reason or the other. So if you really want us to visit your school, it would help if you let the school Principal or a teacher know, so that they can send us an invite. Our book agent can be contacted at denise@closetfulofbooks.com.