Beyond Storytime: When Teachers, Authors, and Illustrators Meet

What is possible when children’s book authors, illustrators, and elementary educators collaborate?

In April 2020, with school buildings closed for COVID-restricted shelter-in-place, NWP Writers Council members, teachers, and children’s book authors and illustrators came together to rethink the stand-alone storytime and the traditional “author visit.” Beyond Storytime Colab was launched from this initial conversation and took the form of collaboration to discover what all these partners might do to support literacy under these new and challenging circumstances. From this beginning, the limited series was created. In each episode, participants dig into one of aspect of the work, spending time co-designing together.

At the time, episodes were live-streamed on Facebook with an online chat. But as viewers came to value the resources and approaches that were created, we have posted here as archived discussions with related resources. The materials created can support any classroom, whether face-to-face, hybrid, or remote.