Award-winning author and illustrator Don Tate visited Preschool & Lower School students on Thursday, November 9th.

Swish: The Slam-Dunking, Alley-Ooping, High-Flying Harlem Globetrotters, illustrated by Mr. Tate, was the Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Honor book. Last year, students in 3rd-5th grade at Sacred Heart and across Louisiana chose Swish as their second favorite book of the year! Mr. Tate’s other books include Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions and, most recently, Jerry Changed the Game: How Engineer Jerry Lawson Revolutionized Video Games Forever.  

In two sessions, Mr. Tate met with "Reading Rockstars" in PK-1st grade and in 2nd-4th grade. Mr. Tate talked about his journey to becoming an author and an illustrator and the importance of practice and research. He showed students how he draws on his ipad and how he continues to make edits and revisions to these sketches until he is happy with them. He then invited students up from the audience to play a game of "Squiggle."

To demonstrate Squiggle, Mr. Tate had the student draw a squiggle, and he then turned it into a signed work of art. He then drew squiggles for the students to complete the picture. With a "Swish" and a "Whoosh," the creativity was flowing!

Mr. Tate closed each session with a Q&A with the audience. Mr. Tate shared that he is researching and working on several new books, so we can't wait to read them!