It was wonderful to do my first in-person US school visit since spring 2020 on May 19th with Maryvale Middle School in Cheektowaga NY. It was a busy day with three assemblies, two “donuts and discussion” roundtables with selected students plus a whole whack of book signings. There was a Scholastic Book Fair being held in the middle school library while I spoke in the high school auditorium, so students bought a LOT of books. Ms. Cortese was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough time for me to autograph them all but I assured her that I’d stay as long as necessary. I love face-to-face autographs. It’s such a neat opportunity to meet students. I thought it was also interesting that students with the same first name came in clusters to have their books signed. How nifty is that?
Maryvale has students from Ukraine, so it was also good to speak with them about the current war.
My hometown of Brantford and the Buffalo area are connected in an unusual way. The first 50 Ukrainian families came to Brantford not from Ukraine, but from Buffalo. They were employed by the Pratt & Letchworth foundry in Buffalo and when they opened up another foundry in Brantford, 50 of their employees from Ukraine settled here to work at the new plant. And the street many of them lived on in Brantford? Why Buffalo Street of course. Want to read more? Here’s an article I wrote about it way back in 1988!
The Cheektowaga Bee’s Elijah Robinson did a lovely interview and has given me permission to post it here.
