Students at John Mahood Public School in Elmira spent the better part of Monday morning cheering, singing and dancing – and also learning a thing or two about literacy as Canadian author Sigmund Brouwer and retired NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Gaston Gingras gave an interactive presentation in the school’s gymnasium.
“This is definitely not an academic presentation,” said Brouwer. “It’s geared to get the kids pumped up about reading and writing.”
Brouwer, an Alberta-born children’s author, gears his talks towards reluctant readers, a demographic he is quite familiar with: Brouwer admitted barely passing his high school English class, but was encouraged by a professor in college to pursue a career in storytelling. From there, he began to write short stories, sending them in to magazines for publication. After seven years of rejection letters and about 2,000 pages of writing, he had a story published for the first time. Then, three years later, his first book was published, a mystery in the Accidental Detectives series.
Now, he is a novelist and children’s book author with close to three million books in print.
“The presentation was one of the best authors we have ever had visit the school,” said Heidi Konig, the library clerk at John Mahood. “He was able to totally engage all the students, at every age level. He got them excited about the idea of writing a story and gave them practical tools about how to do that in a way that was fun.”
Brouwer’s travels take him to nearly 100 schools each year. His interactive presentation involves a period for kids to get up and dance, and he relates the feeling of reading to that of getting lost in a good song.
“I like to use my background as a novelist to help kids get excited about reading,” he said. “Kids who can read and write well when they get out of school have a lot better chance of reaching their dreams than kids who still struggle with it.”
Joining Brouwer at John Mahood was former NHL player Gaston Gingras. The two are planning to co-author a French series about hockey for kids. Gingras, a one-time Toronto Maple Leaf who won a Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1986, held the audience captive as he talked about the importance of education in accomplishing your goals.
“When I first began travelling with my hockey team, I met guys who spoke, and were fluent in three or four languages,” he explained to the group. “I realized how important education is and how far it can take you. Whatever your dream is, reading and being educated is what is going to help you get there.”
