School Visits, USA 

St Ann's Elementary School, Cadillac Michigan.
I spent the day reading from "Carol Corsa and Mickey Morgan" and from Chloe's Extraordinary Telescope", and talking and  answering questions about writing in general, in this very warm and friendly Catholic Elementary School on Monday April 1st, 2002.
This was by no means my first visit to a Catholic school (there are many equivalent schools in the United Kingdom, where they would be known as Catholic Primary Schools), but it was my first one in the USA.  I think my one overriding impression was as to how very similar the school seemed to be to its British counterpart.

Picture below.

In one of the classes at St Ann's Catholic Primary School, Cadillac, Michigan

Ambassadors

I was first introduced to the school children,
as so often, at the morning assembly. Afterwards, one young lady, seemingly totally spontaeously, came up to me and said, "Welcome to our school"
It was to set the tone for the rest of the day, and would leave me with a good, and lasting impression of American schools.
The picture on the right shows me with three young ambassadors for the school.

Marion High School, Marion, Michigan.
Some two years ago I was interviewed by Leslie Morton, an American Teenager, for an article to appear in the Cadillac News. As a result of that interview, we kept in touch. 
This in turn resulted in my being invited to spend a day in an American High School, in this case Marion High School in Michigan. Thus  I spent a very interesting and rewarding day on April 2nd, 2002, talking about writing in general, and my own writing in particular, answering many questions, and asking quite a few of my own, and even reading some extracts of my own writing to several groups of teenagers from various classes in Marion High School.
The photographs  below were taken on that visit.

Above and Below.

In the Marion High School Library talking to one of the English Classes.