Author Charles Smith, Jr. Visits the Library
On Wednesday, April 25th, poet, author. and photographer Charles Smith, Jr. visited with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders of our school. He started the presentation with a school photo of himself in the 8th grade, and went on to describe how he became who he is today - after aspiring to be an astronaut!
Today, Mr. Smith is a very accomplished children’s author, photographer, and athlete. He uses his love of sports and music, as well as his photography to provide inspirational texts geared toward children. One of his major themes is how the lessons learned while playing sports are readily applied to everyday life. His most recent accomplishment in the athletic realm was competing on the show “American Ninja Warrior!”
During his presentation Mr. Smith masterfully conveyed the power of words. He also showed examples where he uses the formatting of the text to relay meaning. In his book
Rimshots, the poem is printed to look like the path of a basketball to the hoop.
Check out more of his books >>
Our students have begun their own “I am…” poems, modeled after his two books
I am America and
I am the World. The Haggerty Library has many of the books he has written, so please check them out! April is Poetry Month and because of Friends of Haggerty we were able to celebrate poetry in a big way with this visit by Charles Smith, Jr.!
Charles R. Smith Jr.’s visit was unlike any other visit I’ve experienced at Haggerty.
He grabbed our attention at the beginning and you were hooked for the rest. He told us about how he became a poet and he came to write his first book, Rimshots. He has traveled to 43 out of 50 states and Hawaii is his favorite. He told us about how he was on American Ninja Warriors and about his photography career. He has done books about NBA and WNBA stars and a lot about Black History. I really liked how fun he was. Thank you for having him come to Haggerty! By Hazel M. (4th grade)