Librarian Assistant
Welcome to the World of Dormia - -
"Ordinary sleepwalkers wake up in the living room or in the kitchen eating ice cream. But twelve-year-old Alfonso Perplexon tends to wake up tightrope-walking along a set of power lines or clinging to the top of a massive, wind-blown pine tree. No one in his hometown of World's End, Minnesota has seen anything like it, until one wintry evening an old man arrives at Alfonso's doorstep with an astounding explanation."
from Jake Halpern's - Dormia
On Thursday, March 11th, Walsh was fortunate to have a very engaging and entertaining author as a guest speaker. His name is Jake Halpern and he offered to visit our school and speak with our students. Halpern already has 2 published books, more for adult readers. The book he discussed at Walsh is called Dormia. It is a fantasy fiction book, his first for 5-8 graders. Halpern is also a producer and commentator on National Public Radio as well as a professor of journalism at Yale University, which is his alma mater.
Halpern is a very interesting young man and an up-and-coming author who grabbed the attention of the 6th grade Walsh audience and kept it for the entire hour! Can you remember the story he told right at the beginning when he asked us to listen and see if we could figure out what part of his story was a lie? As he said in his presentation yesterday, he takes little memories here and there from his personal life and puts them in his fiction. We heard about his visit to the middle of nowhere in Poland to meet his future wife's interesting family; a trip to Egypt where he experienced a sandstorm feeling and watching the sand pile up around him while trying to stay protected in just a nylon camping tent; and, he also shared with us his memory of a college roommate who had "Sleep Terrors" that Halpern experienced firsthand in the middle of the night in his dorm room...regularly accompanied with loud screams, often right in his face! Some part of all of these experiences in his life have ended up in his books in one way or another.
The 6th graders not only were riveted with all of Halpern's stories, they asked him some very good questions about being a writer, how he comes up with his stories, and tried to get him to give them some more clues about how the story of Dormia develops! (But, unfortunately, he didn't reveal any more to us...we're going to have to read the book! Which isn't really a BAD thing - if it's anything like the author's presentation, I'm sure it's going to be a good read!)
Autographed copies of his book are for sale. Students should have received one of the orange order sheets from their homeroom, or you can inquire at the front office. The Walsh library also has two copies available. Walsh is very grateful for Jake Halpern's visit, which was a resounding success!
Visit the World of Dormia website.
http://www.worldofdormia.com/
Remember he mentioned that there will be two more books in this series and that on the website you can participate in a contest where you can offer suggestions for names of future characters!
By the way, we're sure 7th and 8th graders will be captivated with the Dormia series as well!
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