Skyping with Cece Bell

Best selling author Cece Bell Skypes with Edgewood students.

It's not every day when one of your favorite authors comes to your school. For Edgewood fourth and fifth grade students, Skyping with author Cece Bell was part celebrity crush and part awe of her personal story. Her best selling book, El Deafo recounted her childhood struggles with her hearing disability. It was also the centerpiece and mentor text for the students' deep dive into a literary study of graphic novels led by district ELA coordinator Sue Luft.

Bell was clearly impressed with our students' video chat etiquette and knowledge of El Deafo, peppering her with interesting questions such as, "Why did you choose to make everybody as bunnies?"

El Deafo has quickly become a touchstone text for Edgewood students, who memorialized it in our Centennial mosaic. The title appears in the lower right corner of the mosaic, underneath the red apple, in a stack of popular fiction books.

The Centennial mosaic was designed by students with art teacher
Matt Fitzpatrick.

While Cece Bell has been our only author to visit us via Skype, we have had several others come to the Edgewood in person such as Kate Messner, Janet Tashjian, Todd Parr, Laura Marsh, and Jan Reynolds. 

-- Paul Tomizawa