MS Hosts Authors Shusterman & Elfman

Penn Charter welcomed authors Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman to the Middle School for a special assembly with students on April 12.

"Books are like windows into the world," Shusterman, a New York Times best-selling author of over 30 novels, told the students. He also shared how it took him hundreds of rejection letters to finally land a book deal. His persistence paid off, as he won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for "Challenger Deep" and his novel, "Scythe," was a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book.

Elfman is the author or co-author of 14 books for kids and adults, including the award-winning "The Accelerati Trilogy" middle grade sci-fi/action novels, which he co-wrote with Shusterman.

Penn Charter Middle School visiting author

The authors shared their process for co-writing the new book "I am the Walrus" in the N.O.A.H. Files series.

Students also engaged with the authors by asking a wide range of questions to express their own interest in writing and reading. Some of the questions included a dive into some of the books and authors that Shusterman and Elfman read as students (J. R. R. Tolkien, Roald Dahl, and Steven King to name a few), how the authors accomplish research when writing the books, and how the authors choose the names for characters in their books.

The authors discussed and shared their own process for writing collaboratively and how they have navigated the world of publishing.

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MS Hosts Authors Shusterman & Elfman

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