Author Visit May, 2001.
An account of Marita Conlon McKenna's recent visit to our school by Tracey Room 1 .
About one month ago we were all told that someone very famous was coming to our school. At first, we did not know who it was but when we were told we were very excited about it. Everyone read one of her books Under the Hawthorn Tree so we all knew what to ask her.
When she came every one in the school was talking about it .She told us about her life when she was our age.
She and her sister had a next door neighbour but they seldom saw her and she never cut the grass in her garden. Marita and her sister always played with all kinds of balls which all ended up in their neighbours garden. Their mother said I'm not buying any more balls for you two. So the girls decided to crawl under her fence and collect the balls.
Marita said now I'm older I look back and I think I could have pulled up my courage and knocked on that door and done something for her but I didn't. So Marita wrote a book called In the Deep Dark Wood and one of the characters Mia has a neighbour like Marita's but Mia knocks on the door and becomes the woman apprentice.
Marita's own daughter had dyslexia and Marita decided to make her a small book for her communion. A friend of hers knew a publisher so he got the publisher to make it into a book. She showed it us when came.
She said that when she was young her family had two houses one Dublin At school there she was nicknamed bookworm and in Greystones she was a very different person. Her friends called Calamity Jane.
Before she left some people got her autograph and we got three pictures taken with her.We went to back to our classes and 3rd and 4th classes went to the hall to listen to her after us.
So that's the story about when Marita Conlon Mc Kenna came to our school.
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