Solana Santa Fe School played host to a special VIP guest on May 22 when children’s book author Minh Lê stopped in for a school-wide assembly.
Throughout the school year, Solana Santa Fe’s students have been studying Lê’s collection of picture books, including “Drawn Together, “LIFT”, “Real to Me”, “Let Me Finish!” and his most recent release, “Built to Last”. To welcome the author to their campus, the students created artwork inspired by his books.
“Our students know this author well, so getting to meet him in person is a real thrill!” said Principal Matt Frumovitz. “We want our students to have goals and aspirations. Having an author at our school can inspire them to accomplish great things now and in the future.”
The visit to Solana Santa Fe was coordinated by curriculum resource teacher/ librarian Cara Spitzmiller, along with the librarians at the six other Solana Beach School District schools. With from the Parent Teacher Organization, Lê went to all seven Solana Beach schools that week, with each site taking its own unique approach.
Lê’s message was all about the power of imagination. He shared his origin story of becoming a writer, a journey that started by being just a really good reader, revealing a poem he wrote about books when he was in the fifth or sixth grade. The words of his typewriter-typed poem appeared on the big screen: “A book is the key to your imagination that will open the way to a magical location…”
At Solana Santa Fe, he read from “LIFT”, his picture book about how with the press of a magical elevator button, a young girl is sent her off into adventures in a jungle, space and a mountaintop with her baby brother.
During the assembly, the San Diego based author also shared his book, “Drawn Together”, the winner of the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. The touching picture book tells a story that is personally meaningful to both Lê as a Vietnamese American and his illustrator Dan Santat, a Thai American. Like the main character in the book, both of them spoke mostly English while their grandparents spoke a different language and it was sometimes hard to talk to each other.
In “Drawn Together”, a grandfather and grandson are having an awkward afternoon until they start doing art together, drawing and painting a world with wizards and heroes, fighting off a dragon.
“The boy thinks, ‘Right when I gave up on talking, my grandfather surprised me by revealing a world beyond words’,” the story reads. “And in a flash, we see each other for the first time.”
Beyond writing picture books, Lê is also an early childhood policy expert who has worked in education at the federal, state and local level. He said his favorite thing is coming to schools, sharing his love of books with kids.
In addition to publishing multiple picture books, Lê was also tapped by DC Comics to write a comic book, something he had never done before. Given his pick of all the superhero characters in the DC universe, he selected Green Lantern, an individual with strong willpower and a green ring who reminded him of his grandmother, a real life hero who always wore a green jade ring.
“She’s a hero of our family because this year was the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam and she was the one who was responsible for getting my family out of the country when things were getting really bad,” he said.
The resulting graphic novel, “Green Lantern Legacy”, follows a 13-year-old whose grandmother had been a superhero starting his own heroic journey.
Before the assembly, many students got one-on-one time with Lê as he signed their books. In one special meeting, one student formed a connection with Lê, sharing that “Drawn Together” was very similar to his experience with his own grandfather.
A selection of students from each grade level was also invited for a special writers chat with Lê at a table set up in the library with flowers, juice boxes and snacks. Some of the young writers took notes as the author answered their insightful questions about the world of books.
Thanks to the Solana Santa Fe PTO, every class at Solana Santa Fe received a signed copy of “Built to Last” to add to their classroom libraries.
